Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TA, UK; Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DY, UK.
Center for Brain and Cognition, Department of Technology and Information, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Carrer Ramón Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain; Departament de Matemàtiques, EPSEB, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Neuron. 2023 Dec 6;111(23):3871-3884.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.08.024. Epub 2023 Sep 18.
Primates make decisions visually by shifting their view from one object to the next, comparing values between objects, and choosing the best reward, even before acting. Here, we show that when monkeys make value-guided choices, amygdala neurons encode their decisions in an abstract, purely internal representation defined by the monkey's current view but not by specific object or reward properties. Across amygdala subdivisions, recorded activity patterns evolved gradually from an object-specific value code to a transient, object-independent code in which currently viewed and last-viewed objects competed to reflect the emerging view-based choice. Using neural-network modeling, we identified a sequence of computations by which amygdala neurons implemented view-based decision making and eventually recovered the chosen object's identity when the monkeys acted on their choice. These findings reveal a neural mechanism in the amygdala that derives object choices from abstract, view-based computations, suggesting an efficient solution for decision problems with many objects.
灵长类动物通过从一个物体转移到另一个物体来观察，比较物体之间的价值，并在行动之前选择最佳奖励，从而做出视觉决策。在这里，我们表明，当猴子做出有价值的选择时，杏仁核神经元会以一种抽象的、纯粹内部的表示形式对其决策进行编码，这种表示形式由猴子当前的视图定义，但不由特定的物体或奖励属性定义。在杏仁核的各个细分区域中，记录的活动模式逐渐从特定于物体的价值代码演变为短暂的、与物体无关的代码，其中当前观察到的和最后观察到的物体竞争以反映新出现的基于视图的选择。通过神经网络建模，我们确定了一系列计算，通过这些计算，杏仁核神经元实现了基于视图的决策，当猴子根据选择采取行动时，最终恢复了所选物体的身份。这些发现揭示了杏仁核中的一种神经机制，该机制从基于视图的计算中得出物体选择，这为具有许多物体的决策问题提供了一种有效的解决方案。
