Behavioral and neural algorithms for decision confidence

项目概要/摘要 我们研究的长期目标是了解额叶皮层的神经回路是如何支持决策的- 制作。眶额皮层（OFC）在不确定性下的决策中起着关键作用， 人类和其他动物更准确地预测结果。本提案的目的 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 我们实验室以前的工作表明，“决策信心”是一个认知变量， 在单个OFC神经元中，OFC失活特别损害了信心引导的行为，时间投资。 所提出的实验旨在确定负责的计算和神经算法 两种信心引导行为：时间投资和选择策略更新（学习）。我们的中央 假设是OFC产生决策信心的抽象表示，独立于感官 证据，支持多种信心引导的行为。为了验证这个想法，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，使行为读出的 信心，作为一个决定后的时间赌注。简单地说，在每一个感知决定（嗅觉或听觉）大鼠 花时间等待延迟的、不确定的回报。这些分级久期投资作为一种 行为报告的信心，刚刚作出的感性决定将导致成功的感性 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， 学习，第二，我们将确定这些算法在OFC的神经基板。第三，我们将确定 如果OFC表征是感觉-模态和行为-输出的一般，并测试OFC的因果作用，使用 灭活。最后，我们将绘制听觉信息的感觉路径，以告知OFC表征， 测试假设，听觉皮层损伤导致听觉障碍，辨别声音的能力，而不 知觉自信 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，一个关键的认知变量。我们的做法是 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 对大鼠除了这些机制的研究，拟议的工作将推进有关额叶皮层的知识， 认知变量表示的逻辑并为理解障碍如何影响提供改进的框架 在一个单一的大脑区域可以导致广泛的精神疾病，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.