Department of Neuroscience, Washington University in St Louis, Saint Louis, United States.
NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China.
Elife. 2021 Oct 13;10:e71695. doi: 10.7554/eLife.71695.
The role of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACCd) in decision making has often been discussed but remains somewhat unclear. On the one hand, numerous studies implicated this area in decisions driven by effort or action cost. On the other hand, work on economic choices between goods (under fixed action costs) found that neurons in ACCd encoded only post-decision variables. To advance our understanding of the role played by this area in decision making, we trained monkeys to choose between different goods (juice types) offered in variable amounts and with different action costs. Importantly, the task design dissociated computation of the action cost from planning of any particular action. Neurons in ACCd encoded the chosen value and the binary choice outcome in several reference frames (chosen juice, chosen cost, chosen action). Thus, this area provided a rich representation of post-decision variables. In contrast to the OFC, neurons in ACCd did not represent pre-decision variables such as individual offer values in any reference frame. Hence, ongoing decisions are unlikely guided by ACCd. Conversely, neuronal activity in this area might inform subsequent actions.
背侧前扣带皮层（ACCd）在决策中的作用经常被讨论，但仍有些不清楚。一方面，许多研究表明该区域与努力或行动成本驱动的决策有关。另一方面，在针对具有固定行动成本的商品进行的经济选择研究中发现，ACCd 中的神经元仅编码决策后的变量。为了深入了解该区域在决策中的作用，我们训练猴子在不同数量和不同行动成本的不同商品（果汁类型）之间进行选择。重要的是，任务设计将行动成本的计算与任何特定行动的计划分离开来。ACCd 中的神经元以几种参考系（所选果汁、所选成本、所选动作）对所选值和二进制选择结果进行编码。因此，该区域提供了丰富的决策后变量表示。与 OFC 相反，ACCd 中的神经元在任何参考系中都不代表决策前变量，例如个别报价值。因此，当前的决策不太可能受 ACCd 指导。相反，该区域的神经元活动可能会告知后续行动。
