Topic: reward magnitude

The frontal cortex plays critical roles in learning and decision-making, particularly in representing reward-related variables such as reward magnitude and probability. Previous studies have identified frontal neural representations of these variables in expertly trained animals. However, it remains unknown how these representations emerge during learning from naive to expert. To address this gap, we use 2-photon microscopy to longitudinally record the activity of the same population of neurons in the dorsomedial frontal cortex. We record from head-fixed mice learning to perform Pavlovian or o

Movement vigor changes with reward magnitude: movements exhibit shorter reaction time and increased velocity when directed toward more rewarding options. But what if the reward is turned down? In interactive economic games, people often choose to punish unfair proposers, even when the punishment is personally costly. How vigorously do they move in punishing unfair offers? Is vigor proportional to the incurred self-cost? Or does it rather reflect the cost inflicted on the unfair other? Here, we combined experimental economics and kinematics to address these questions. In study 1, we used motion