Department of Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Adaptatives (UMR 7364), Strasbourg, France.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jul 29;13(1):4405. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32199-y.
Economic choices between goods entail the computation and comparison of subjective values. Previous studies examined neuronal activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) of monkeys choosing between different types of juices. Three groups of neurons were identified: offer value cells encoding the value of individual offers, chosen juice cells encoding the identity of the chosen juice, and chosen value cells encoding the value of the chosen offer. The encoded variables capture both the input (offer value) and the output (chosen juice, chosen value) of the decision process, suggesting that values are compared within OFC. Recent work demonstrates that choices are causally linked to the activity of offer value cells. Conversely, the hypothesis that OFC contributes to value comparison has not been confirmed. Here we show that weak electrical stimulation of OFC specifically disrupts value comparison without altering offer values. This result implies that neuronal populations in OFC participate in value comparison.
经济物品选择涉及主观价值的计算和比较。之前的研究考察了猴子在选择不同类型果汁之间的眶额皮层（OFC）中的神经元活动。确定了三组神经元：提供价值细胞，编码个体报价的价值；选择的果汁细胞，编码选择的果汁的身份；以及选择的价值细胞，编码所选报价的价值。编码的变量既捕获了决策过程的输入（报价价值），又捕获了输出（所选果汁，所选价值），这表明在 OFC 内进行了价值比较。最近的工作表明，选择与报价价值细胞的活动有因果关系。相反，OFC 有助于价值比较的假设尚未得到证实。在这里，我们表明，OFC 的弱电刺激特异性地破坏了价值比较而不改变报价价值。这一结果意味着，OFC 中的神经元群体参与了价值比较。
