National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
Nat Neurosci. 2023 Jan;26(1):107-115. doi: 10.1038/s41593-022-01216-0. Epub 2022 Dec 22.
We use mental models of the world-cognitive maps-to guide behavior. The lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) is typically thought to support behavior by deploying these maps to simulate outcomes, but recent evidence suggests that it may instead support behavior by underlying map creation. We tested between these two alternatives using outcome-specific devaluation and a high-potency chemogenetic approach. Selectively inactivating lOFC principal neurons when male rats learned distinct cue-outcome associations, but before outcome devaluation, disrupted subsequent inference, confirming a role for the lOFC in creating new maps. However, lOFC inactivation surprisingly led to generalized devaluation, a result that is inconsistent with a complete mapping failure. Using a reinforcement learning framework, we show that this effect is best explained by a circumscribed deficit in credit assignment precision during map construction, suggesting that the lOFC has a selective role in defining the specificity of associations that comprise cognitive maps.
我们使用对世界的心理模型（认知地图）来指导行为。外侧眶额皮层（lOFC）通常被认为通过部署这些地图来模拟结果来支持行为，但最近的证据表明，它可能通过支持地图创建来支持行为。我们使用特定于结果的贬值和高功效化学遗传方法来检验这两种替代方案。当雄性大鼠学习不同的线索-结果关联时，选择性地使 lOFC 主神经元失活，但在结果贬值之前，会破坏随后的推断，从而证实了 lOFC 在创建新地图中的作用。然而，lOFC 的失活出人意料地导致了普遍的贬值，这一结果与完全映射失败不一致。使用强化学习框架，我们表明，这种效应最好通过在地图构建过程中信用分配精度的局限性来解释，这表明 lOFC 在定义构成认知地图的关联的特异性方面具有选择性作用。
