TY - JOUR
T1 - Correlates of decisional dynamics in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
AU - Azab, Habiba
AU - Hayden, Benjamin Y.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Azab, Hayden.
PY - 2017/11/15
Y1 - 2017/11/15
N2 - We hypothesized that during binary economic choice, decision makers use the first option they attend as a default to which they compare the second. To test this idea, we recorded activity of neurons in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) of macaques choosing between gambles presented asynchronously. We find that ensemble encoding of the value of the first offer includes both choice-dependent and choice-independent aspects, as if reflecting a partial decision. That is, its responses are neither entirely pre- nor post-decisional. In contrast, coding of the value of the second offer is entirely decision dependent (i.e., post-decisional). This result holds even when offer-value encodings are compared within the same time period. Additionally, we see no evidence for 2 pools of neurons linked to the 2 offers; instead, all comparison appears to occur within a single functionally homogenous pool of task-selective neurons. These observations suggest that economic choices reflect a context-dependent evaluation of attended options. Moreover, they raise the possibility that value representations reflect, to some extent, a tentative commitment to a choice.
AB - We hypothesized that during binary economic choice, decision makers use the first option they attend as a default to which they compare the second. To test this idea, we recorded activity of neurons in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) of macaques choosing between gambles presented asynchronously. We find that ensemble encoding of the value of the first offer includes both choice-dependent and choice-independent aspects, as if reflecting a partial decision. That is, its responses are neither entirely pre- nor post-decisional. In contrast, coding of the value of the second offer is entirely decision dependent (i.e., post-decisional). This result holds even when offer-value encodings are compared within the same time period. Additionally, we see no evidence for 2 pools of neurons linked to the 2 offers; instead, all comparison appears to occur within a single functionally homogenous pool of task-selective neurons. These observations suggest that economic choices reflect a context-dependent evaluation of attended options. Moreover, they raise the possibility that value representations reflect, to some extent, a tentative commitment to a choice.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003091
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003091
M3 - Article
C2 - 29141002
AN - SCOPUS:85036457803
SN - 1544-9173
VL - 15
JO - PLoS biology
JF - PLoS biology
IS - 11
M1 - e2003091
ER -