Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Neuron. 2013 Oct 2;80(1):223-34. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.07.040. Epub 2013 Sep 5.
In stable environments, decision makers can exploit their previously learned strategies for optimal outcomes, while exploration might lead to better options in unstable environments. Here, to investigate the cortical contributions to exploratory behavior, we analyzed single-neuron activity recorded from four different cortical areas of monkeys performing a matching-pennies task and a visual search task, which encouraged and discouraged exploration, respectively. We found that neurons in multiple regions in the frontal and parietal cortex tended to encode signals related to previously rewarded actions more reliably than unrewarded actions. In addition, signals for rewarded choices in the supplementary eye field were attenuated during the visual search task and were correlated with the tendency to switch choices during the matching-pennies task. These results suggest that the supplementary eye field might play a unique role in encouraging animals to explore alternative decision-making strategies.
在稳定的环境中，决策者可以利用他们之前学到的策略来获得最佳结果，而探索可能会在不稳定的环境中带来更好的选择。在这里，为了研究大脑皮层对探索行为的贡献，我们分析了猴子在执行匹配硬币任务和视觉搜索任务时从四个不同大脑皮层区域记录的单个神经元活动，这两个任务分别鼓励和阻止探索。我们发现，前额叶和顶叶皮层的多个区域的神经元往往更可靠地编码与先前奖励动作相关的信号，而不是未奖励动作的信号。此外，在视觉搜索任务中，补充眼区的奖励选择信号减弱，与在匹配硬币任务中切换选择的倾向相关。这些结果表明，补充眼区可能在鼓励动物探索替代决策策略方面发挥独特作用。
