Behavioral and neural algorithms for decision confidence

项目摘要/摘要 我们研究的长期目标是了解额叶皮质的神经回路如何支持决策-- 制作。眼眶前额叶皮质(OFC)在不确定条件下的决策中起着关键作用，被认为能够 人类和其他动物对结果做出更准确的预测。这项提议的目的是 是确定负责信心引导行为的算法及其神经基础 哺乳动物的大脑。 我们实验室以前的研究表明，作为一种认知变量，“决策信心”是编码的 在单个OFC神经元和OFC失活中，OFC特定地损害了自信引导行为、时间投资。 建议的实验旨在确定负责计算和神经算法的 两种自信引导行为：时间投入和选择策略更新(学习)。我们的中央 假设OFC产生与感觉无关的决策信心的抽象表征 证据，这支持多种信心引导行为。为了测试这个想法，我们设计了一个定量的 大鼠的心理物理任务，改编自人类和灵长类动物的工作，使行为读数 信心，作为决策后的临时赌注。简单地说，在每个知觉决定(嗅觉或听觉)大鼠之后 花时间等待延迟的、不确定的回报。这些分级期限的时间投资是一种 对刚刚做出的知觉决定将导致知觉成功的信心的行为报告 决定。首先，我们将开发计算算法来解释信心引导的时间投资和 第二，我们将在OFC中识别这些算法的神经基础。第三，我们将确定 如果OFC表征是感觉-通道和行为-输出的一般，并测试OFC的因果作用使用 停用。最后，我们将绘制一条听觉信息的感觉路线，以告知OFC表征和 测试听觉皮质损伤会导致耳聋的假设，即在没有听力障碍的情况下辨别声音的能力 感性的自信。 我们认为，这些贡献意义重大，因为它们将提供关键的缺失信息。 关于决策信心的算法和神经基础，这是一个关键的认知变量。我们的方法是 创新，主要是因为我们开发了一个计算和行为框架来研究信心 在老鼠身上。除了这些机制研究，拟议的工作将促进对额叶皮质的了解 认知变量表示的逻辑，并提供了一个更好的框架来理解损伤 在一个单一的大脑区域可以导致广泛的精神障碍，如抑郁症，强迫症- 强迫症和精神病。

Project Summary/Abstract The long-term goal of our investigations is to understand how neural circuits in the frontal cortex support decision- making. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) plays a key role in decision-making under uncertainty and is thought to enable humans and other animals to make predictions about outcomes more accurately. The objective of this proposal is to determine the algorithms responsible for confidence-guided behaviors and their neural basis in the mammalian brain. Previous work from our laboratory has shown that `decision confidence', a cognitive variable, is encoded in single OFC neurons and OFC inactivation specifically impairs a confidence-guided behavior, time investment. The proposed experiments are designed to determine the computational and neural algorithms responsible for two confidence-guided behaviors: time investment and choice strategy updating (learning). Our central hypothesis is that OFC generates an abstract representation of decision confidence, independent of sensory evidence, that supports multiple confidence-guided behaviors. To test this idea, we have designed a quantitative psychophysical task for rats, adapted from human and primate work, that enable behavioral readouts of confidence, as a post-decision temporal wager. Simply, after each perceptual decision (olfactory or auditory) rats invest time waiting for a delayed, uncertain reward. These graded- duration time investments serve as a behavioral report of confidence that the perceptual decision just made will result in the success of the perceptual decision. First, we will develop computational algorithms to explain confidence-guided time investment and learning, and second we will identify neural substrates of these algorithms in the OFC. Third, we will determine if OFC representations are sensory-modality and behavioral-output general and test the causal role of OFC using inactivations. Finally, we will map a sensory route for auditory information to inform OFC representations and test the hypothesis that auditory cortex lesions lead to deaf-hearing, the ability to discriminate sounds without perceptual confidence. These contributions are significant, in our opinion, because they will provide critical missing information about the algorithmic and neural foundations of decision confidence, a key cognitive variable. Our approach is innovative, chiefly because we have developed a computational and behavioral framework to study confidence in rats. Beyond these mechanistic studies, the proposed work will advance knowledge about the frontal cortical logic of cognitive variable representations and inform an improved framework for understanding how impairments in a single brain area can lead to a wide range of psychiatric disorders, as seen in depression, obsessive- compulsive and psychotic disorders.