The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex represents subjective value across effort-based and risky decision-making

Abstract

Decisions that require taking prospective effort costs into account are ubiquitous in real life. The common currency theory hypothesizes that a neural network integrates different costs and rewards into a common scale to facilitate value comparison. Although there has been a surge of interest in the computational and neural basis of effort-reward integration, it is still under debate if the common currency theory could be applied to value integration in this context. Here, we comprehensively compared effort-based and risky decision-making using computational modeling, univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, and data from two independent studies. We found that prospective outcomes were distinctively discounted by effort and risk. Moreover, although univariate fMRI analyses showed diverse results between tasks, multivariate decoding analyses indicated that the neural patterns of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) represented subjective value information across effort-based and risky decision-making. These findings suggest that the dmPFC plays a critical role in computing subjective value in a task-independent manner and thus extend the scope of the common currency theory.

A neurometabolic mechanism involving dmPFC/dACC lactate in physical effort-based decision-making

“…Therefore, we validated the robustness of our tasks not only for assessing effort-based decision-making across physical and mental domains as shown above (Results: Behavioral Results), but also by confirming their ability to engage the dmPFC/dACC and aIns during such processes. This supports the documented contributions of these regions to effort valuation and decision-making 10,11,61,[67][68][69][70][71] , with our analysis distinguishing this activation from factors like subjective value perception 60,62,63 or reaction times [64][65][66] .…”

“…We assessed dmPFC/dACC activity at the time of choice, hypothesizing it to represent an energization signal [47,52] modulating the proportion of HE choices based on the effort required. Alternative accounts of the dmPFC/dACC during decision-making relate it to negative subjective value encoding [53][54][55][56] and to deliberation times [57][58][59]. We therefore included these regressors in our analysis.…”

Human ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for prosocial motivation

“…Specifically, vmPFC patients were less willing to work when the effort required was minimal than HC participants were. The involvement of vmPFC in processing effort has been reported in human neuroimaging studies 1,3,8,38,71 , although not consistently in tasks similar to the one used here 8,23,38 . To our knowledge, no human lesion studies Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01899-4…”

“…The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is considered critical for decision-making. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate that vmPFC is key for processing costs such as effort and benefits such as rewards, as well as integrating these to compute value [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] . Activity in vmPFC has also been linked with social decisions involving other people [9][10][11][12] .…”

The neurocomputational link between defensive cardiac states and approach-avoidance arbitration under threat

“…Adapting the relative weight of potential positive vs. negative outcomes might enable more optimal decisions to approach rather than avoid when the potential reward (relative to threat) is deemed sufficiently large 28 . Such value integration has previously been suggested to be driven by the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) 32,36,42,43 and pre-motor areas such as the supplemental motor area (SMA) 29,44 . We predict that value integration in these regions might be driven by freezing states.…”