Frontal circuit specialisations for decision making
During primate evolution, prefrontal cortex (PFC) expanded substantially relative to other cortical areas. The expansion of PFC circuits likely supported the increased cognitive abilities of humans and anthropoids to plan, evaluate, and decide between different courses of action. But what do these circuits compute as a decision is being made, and how can they be related to anatomical specialisations within and across PFC? To address this, we recorded PFC activity during value-based decision making using single unit recording in non-human primates and magnetoencephalography in humans. At a macrocircuit level, we found that value correlates differ substantially across PFC subregions. They are heavily shaped by each subregion’s anatomical connections and by the decision-maker’s current locus of attention. At a microcircuit level, we found that the temporal evolution of value correlates can be predicted using cortical recurrent network models that temporally integrate incoming decision evidence. These models reflect the fact that PFC circuits are highly recurrent in nature and have synaptic properties that support persistent activity across temporally extended cognitive tasks. Our findings build upon recent work describing economic decision making as a process of attention-weighted evidence integration across time.
How Memory Guides Value-Based Decisions
From robots to humans, the ability to learn from experience turns a rigid response system into a flexible, adaptive one. In this talk, I will discuss emerging findings regarding the neural and cognitive mechanisms by which learning shapes decisions. The lecture will focus on how multiple brain regions interact to support learning, what this means for how memories are built, and the consequences for how decisions are made. Results emerging from this work challenge the traditional view of separate learning systems and advance understanding of how memory biases decisions in both adaptive and maladaptive ways.