Padoa-Schioppa Camillo, Assad John A
Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2008 Jan;11(1):95-102. doi: 10.1038/nn2020. Epub 2007 Dec 9.
Economic choice entails assigning values to the available options and is impaired by lesions to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Recent results show that some neurons in the OFC encode the values that monkeys (Macaca mulatta) assign to different goods when they choose between them. A broad and fundamental question is how this neuronal representation of value depends on the behavioral context. Here we show that neuronal responses in the OFC are typically invariant for changes of menu. In other words, the activity of a neuron in response to one particular good usually does not depend on what other goods are available at the same time. Neurons in the OFC encode economic value, not relative preference. The fact that their responses are menu invariant suggests that transitivity, a fundamental trait of economic choice, may be rooted in the activity of individual neurons.
经济选择需要为可用选项赋予价值,而眶额皮质(OFC)受损会损害这种能力。最近的研究结果表明,OFC中的一些神经元编码猴子(猕猴)在不同物品之间进行选择时赋予它们的价值。一个广泛而基本的问题是,这种价值的神经元表征如何依赖于行为背景。在这里,我们表明,OFC中的神经元反应通常对于菜单变化是不变的。换句话说,神经元对一种特定物品的反应活动通常不取决于同时还有哪些其他物品可供选择。OFC中的神经元编码经济价值,而非相对偏好。它们的反应对菜单不变这一事实表明,传递性作为经济选择的一个基本特征,可能源于单个神经元的活动。