An Agent Independent Axis for Executed and Modeled Choice in Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Abstract

SummaryAdaptive success in social animals depends on an ability to infer the likely actions of others. Little is known about the neural computations that underlie this capacity. Here, we show that the brain models the values and choices of others even when these values are currently irrelevant. These modeled choices use the same computations that underlie our own choices, but are resolved in a distinct neighboring medial prefrontal brain region. Crucially, however, when subjects choose on behalf of a partner instead of themselves, these regions exchange their functional roles. Hence, regions that represented values of the subject’s executed choices now represent the values of choices executed on behalf of the partner, and those that previously modeled the partner now model the subject. These data tie together neural computations underlying self-referential and social inference, and in so doing establish a new functional axis characterizing the medial wall of prefrontal cortex.

The neuroeconomics of strategic interaction

“…how one's own actions had influenced the behavior of the other). The role of the mPFC has been found in other studies on social learning [36][37][38] as representing other's action-reward and action-outcome contingencies. In addition, the implication of the rACC, found to be active for a lower level of strategic thinking [22] has also been shown in repeated strategic games as associated to a lower level of sophisticated learning.…”

Not on my team: Medial prefrontal cortex responses to ingroup fusion and unfair monetary divisions

“…The portion of the VMPFC identified in this study has been consistently linked to the processing of the value of rewards for ourselves and also others (Rushworth & Behrens, 2008; Smith, Clithero, Boltuck, & Huettel, 2014). Both neurophysiological recordings in monkeys and neuroimaging studies in humans show that neurons in this region predict the value of rewards that we – and others – will receive (Apps et al., 2016; Garvert, Moutoussis, Kurth‐Nelson, Behrens, & Dolan, 2015; Hill, Boorman, & Fried, 2016; Nicolle et al., 2012). It is therefore possible that activity in this study could be related to the differential payoffs to self and other, rather than to fairness per se.…”

“…Is the response to unfairness in these regions modulated for ingroup members and by the degree of fusion to a group? Moreover, given that these regions have distinct functional and anatomical profiles in other domains of behavior (Barbas, Ghashghaei, Dombrowski, & Rempel‐Clower, 1999; Carmichael & Price, 1995; Nicolle et al., 2012), do they make distinct contributions to the processing of fairness in a group context?…”

What’s Worth the Risk? A Neural Circuit for Trade-Offs

“…(D) Some of the anatomically distinct human medial prefrontal regions identified in different type of decision tasks (blue, hypothetical/metarepresentation/social value; red, foraging value; magenta, online or economic value; green, strategic value/trade-off decisions). Summary figure adapted from studies by Nicolle et al, 2012;Kolling et al, 2012;Wan et al, 2015;Neubert et al, 2015). The green area in the human brain resembles macaque pgACC and, therefore, the rat PFC-PL studied by Friedman et al, while the red area resembles the PFC-ACC studied by Friedman et al…”

“…For example, the PFC-ACC area adjacent to PFC-PL is involved in other cost-benefit trade-offs where effort rather than aversion is the cost, and it is critical for behavioral flexibility when the value of the environment changes (Rudebeck et al, 2006;Kolling et al, 2012). By contrast, a medial and lateral orbitofrontal network allows flexible online value computations and credit assignment (Rudebeck and Murray, 2014;Stalnaker et al, 2015), and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is active in evaluations and decisions that involve hypothetical scenarios or social contexts (Nicolle et al, 2012). In many cases, we know that such evaluations and decisions are a result of activity not just in frontal cortex, but also in striatum.…”