The covert expectation of reward during deliberation

描述（由申请人提供）：审议需要对结果进行系列检查和评价。虽然有详细的，机械的，定量的非审议决策理论，这样的审议决策理论仍然缺乏。这是由于缺乏对审议机制的关键实验知识。深思熟虑的决策需要对各种可能性进行连续的考虑，在一个重复的周期中需要三个步骤：（1）预测自己行动的后果，（2）评估这些预测的后果，（3）选择最佳行动。限制我们研究协商决策能力的一个重要困难是，协商过程是隐蔽的，也就是说，正在考虑的瞬时信息不会反映在即时行为中。然而，新的数学技术现在允许在非常快的时间尺度上从神经集合中解码所代表的变量，从而能够观察到这些瞬时的、隐蔽的过程。这个提议的目标是跟踪在评估替代方案时对奖励结果的隐蔽预测。我们有初步的数据表明，已知参与动机和评价的结构（腹侧纹状体，眶额皮质）在某些深思熟虑的决策点上显示出短暂的奖励相关活动激活。结合新的多结构记录技术，新开发的任务，新改进的神经集成分析技术和计算建模，我们将研究海马体中未来可能性的表征与奖励相关信息在已知参与动机，奖励和决策的结构中的隐蔽再现之间的关系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Deliberation entails the serial examination and evaluation of outcomes. While there are detailed, mechanistic, and quantitative theories of non-deliberative decision-making, such theories of deliberative decision-making are still lacking. This is due to a lack of key experimental knowledge of the mechanisms of deliberation. Deliberative decision-making entails the sequential consideration of possibilities, requiring three steps in a repeated cycle: (1) prediction of the consequences of one's actions, (2) evaluation of those predicted consequences, and (3) selection of the best action. An important difficulty that has limited our ability to study deliberative decision-making is that the process of deliberation is covert, that is, the transient information being considered is not reflected in immediate behavior. However, new mathematical techniques now allow decoding of represented variables from neural ensembles at very fast timescales, enabling the observation of those transient, covert processes. The goal of this proposal is to track the covert prediction of reward outcomes as alternatives are evaluated. We have preliminary data that structures known to be involved in motivation and evaluation (ventral striatum, orbitofrontal cortex) show a transient activation of reward-related activity at certain deliberative decision-points. Combining newly available multi-structure recording techniques, newly developed tasks, newly improved neural ensemble analysis techniques, and computational modeling, we will examine the relationship between the representations of future possibilities in hippocampus and the covert reappearance of reward-related information in structures known to be involved in motivation and reward and decision-making.