Decision Activity in Parietal Cortex – Leader or Follower?

Pisupati, Sashank; Chartarifsky, Lital; Churchland, Anne K.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.09.005

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The accumulation-system concept could be a viewpoint to address the recent emerging issues of involvement of the parietal regions in decision making ( Pisupati et al, 2016 ). Studies of rat and monkey showed that the inactivation of the decision-related prefrontal regions substantially impaired decisions while that of the posterior parietal regions did little or not, suggesting that the parietal cortex, despite its accumulating activity, does not causally contribute to decision making but plays a supporting role ( Erlich et al, 2015 ; Hanks et al, 2015 ; Katz et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution

Morito

Matsumoto

2022

J. Neurosci.

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Neural substrates of evidence accumulation have been a central issue in decision-making studies because of the prominent success of the accumulation model in explaining a wide range of perceptual decision making. Since accumulation-shaped activities have been found in multiple brain regions, which are called accumulators, questions regarding functional relations among these accumulators are emerging. This study employed the deconvolution method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals from human male and female participants during object-category decision tasks, taking advantage of the whole-brain coverage of fMRI with improved availability of temporal information of the deconvolved activity. We detected the accumulation activity in many non-category-selective regions (NCSRs) over the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes as well as category-selective regions (CSRs) of the categorization task. Importantly, the frontal regions mostly showed activity peaks matching the decision timing (classified as “type-A accumulator”), while activity peaks of the parietal and temporal regions were behind the decision (classified as “type-B accumulator”). The CSRs showed activity peaks whose timing depended on both region and stimulus preference, plausibly reflecting the competition among the alternative choices (classified as “type-C accumulator”). The results suggest that these functionally heterogeneous accumulators form a system for evidence accumulation in which the type-A accumulator regions make decisions in a general manner while the type-B and type-C accumulator regions are employed depending on the modality and content of decision tasks. The concept of the accumulation system may provide a key to understanding the universality of the accumulation model over various kinds of decision tasks. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Perceptual decision making, such as deciding to walk or stop on seeing the signal colors, has been explained theoretically by the accumulation model, in which sensory information is accumulated to reach a certain threshold for making decisions. Neural substrates of this model, however, are still under elucidation among candidate regions found over the brain. We show here that, taking advantage of the whole-brain coverage of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with improving availability of temporal information by deconvolution method, the accumulation is conducted by a system comprising many regions in different abstraction levels and only a part of these regions in the frontal cortex make decisions. The system concept may provide a key to explaining the universality of the accumulation model.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution

Morito

Matsumoto

2022

J. Neurosci.

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“…Along the same lines, pharmacological inactivation studies showed that temporary lesions in LIP caused a reduction of contralesional choices – i.e., the visual space represented by the silenced neurons – in oculomotor free-choice decisions 11 , 12 . Remarkably, silencing LIP neurons in motion discrimination tasks did not have any effect on the decision process 13 , questioning the role of LIP in perceptual decisions 14 , 15 . Similar findings have also been reported in rodents, where inactivating PPC neurons whose activity was correlated with decision-related variables affected free-choices but not perceptual judgments 16 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Lateral intraparietal area (LIP) is largely effector-specific in free-choice decisions

Christopoulos

Kagan

Andersen

2018

Sci Rep

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Despite many years of intense research, there is no strong consensus about the role of the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) in decision making. One view of LIP function is that it guides spatial attention, providing a “saliency map” of the external world. If this were the case, it would contribute to target selection regardless of which action would be performed to implement the choice. On the other hand, LIP inactivation has been shown to influence spatial selection and oculomotor metrics in free-choice decisions, which are made using eye movements, arguing that it contributes to saccade decisions. To dissociate between a more general attention role and a more effector specific saccade role, we reversibly inactivated LIP while non-human primates freely selected between two targets, presented in the two hemifields, with either saccades or reaches. Unilateral LIP inactivation induced a strong choice bias to ipsilesional targets when decisions were made with saccades. Interestingly, the inactivation also caused a reduction of contralesional choices when decisions were made with reaches, albeit the effect was less pronounced. These findings suggest that LIP is part of a network for making oculomotor decisions and is largely effector-specific in free-choice decisions.

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“…If we are to draw a constructive take-home message from the step-ramp debate at this time, it is simply that the time is right to specify models of decisions and their relation to physiology with greater precision, and that this level of precision requires simultaneous consideration of a multitude of sensory, cognitive, and motor signals. Of course, given the lack of a clear causal role of LIP in motion decisions, recordings from areas (or circuits) more clearly involved in decisions may provide more direct insight into the dynamics of the decision-making process (Brody & Hanks 2016, Pesaran & Freedman 2016, Pisupati et al 2016). …”

Section: Applying the Sensorimotor Multiplexing Perspective To Other mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of the Lateral Intraparietal Area in (the Study of) Decision Making

Huk

Katz

Yates

2017

Annu. Rev. Neurosci.

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Over the past two decades, neurophysiological responses in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) have received extensive study for insight into decision-making. In a parallel manner, inferred cognitive processes have enriched interpretations of LIP activity. Because of this bidirectional interplay between physiology and cognition, LIP has served as fertile ground for developing quantitative models that link neural activity with decision-making. These models stand as some of the most important frameworks for linking brain and mind, and they are now mature enough to be evaluated in finer detail and integrated with other lines of investigation of LIP function. Here, we focus on the relationship between LIP responses and known sensory and motor events in perceptual decision-making tasks, as assessed by correlative and causal methods. The resulting sensorimotor-focused approach offers an account of LIP activity as a multiplexed amalgam of sensory, cognitive, and motor-related activity, with a complex and often indirect relationship to decision processes. Our data-driven focus on multiplexing (and de-multiplexing) of various response components can complement decision-focused models and provides more detailed insight into how neural signals might relate to cognitive processes such as decision-making.

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Decision Activity in Parietal Cortex – Leader or Follower?

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution

Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution

Lateral intraparietal area (LIP) is largely effector-specific in free-choice decisions

The Role of the Lateral Intraparietal Area in (the Study of) Decision Making

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