Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA; Department of Neurosurgery School of Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA; Pain Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA; Basic Neuroscience, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA 02478, USA.
Curr Biol. 2020 Dec 7;30(23):R1442-R1454. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.009.
The brain mechanism for controlling continuous behavior in dynamic contexts must mediate action selection and learning across many timescales, responding differentially to the level of environmental uncertainty and volatility. In this review, we argue that a part of the frontal cortex known as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is particularly well suited for this function. First, the ACC is interconnected with prefrontal, parietal, and subcortical regions involved in valuation and action selection. Second, the ACC integrates diverse, behaviorally relevant information across multiple timescales, producing output signals that temporally encapsulate decision and learning processes and encode high-dimensional information about the value and uncertainty of future outcomes and subsequent behaviors. Third, the ACC signals behaviorally relevant information flexibly, displaying the capacity to represent information about current and future states in a valence-, context-, task- and action-specific manner. Fourth, the ACC dynamically controls instrumental- and non-instrumental information seeking behaviors to resolve uncertainty about future outcomes. We review electrophysiological and circuit disruption studies in primates to develop this point, discuss its relationship to novel therapeutics for neuropsychiatric disorders in humans, and conclude by relating ongoing research in primates to studies of medial frontal cortical regions in rodents.
控制动态环境中连续行为的大脑机制必须在多个时间尺度上协调动作选择和学习，对环境不确定性和波动性的水平做出不同的反应。在这篇综述中，我们认为，前额叶皮层的一部分，即前扣带皮层（ACC），特别适合这项功能。首先，ACC 与参与估值和动作选择的前额叶、顶叶和皮质下区域相互连接。其次，ACC 在多个时间尺度上整合了多样化的、与行为相关的信息，产生输出信号，这些信号在时间上封装了决策和学习过程，并对未来结果和后续行为的价值和不确定性的高维信息进行编码。第三，ACC 灵活地传递与行为相关的信息，表现出以效价、上下文、任务和动作特异性来表示当前和未来状态信息的能力。第四，ACC 动态地控制工具性和非工具性信息寻求行为，以解决对未来结果的不确定性。我们通过回顾灵长类动物的电生理学和电路干扰研究来阐述这一点，讨论其与人类神经精神障碍新型治疗方法的关系，并通过将灵长类动物的正在进行的研究与啮齿动物中内侧前额皮质区域的研究联系起来，得出结论。
