Cortical Representations for Value-Based Decision Making

在饮食、财务、受教育程度和公共政策等领域做出正确的决定，需要评估和比较可能是复杂和多方面的选择。先前的脑成像研究表明，在决策过程中，被称为腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）的额叶区域在产生对个人选择的主观价值估计方面发挥着重要作用。这一区域的活动随所考虑的备选方案的主观价值而变化。然而，vmPFC还参与许多其他认知功能，其内部功能组织尚不清楚。特别是，目前尚不清楚评估信号是否来自与记忆、计划和自我参照思维等过程有关的vmPFC的同一部分。本研究将比较个体大脑中与评估和非评估过程相关的vmPFC活动模式。该结果将有助于开发改进的方法，用于从脑成像数据中测量特定认知过程的参与。由于vmPFC被认为编码类似于经济效用的变量，这项工作将有助于神经科学和经济学之间日益增长的跨学科对话。该项目将增强神经科学方法在理解经济决策方面的实用性，从而有助于推进与社会相关的经济目标。该项目的跨学科性质将为参与研究的学生和学员创造丰富的教育机会。该项目将使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）来测试在单个个体水平上，vmPFC的估值效应是否可以从地形上与默认模式网络（DMN）效应分离开来。该项目涉及具有神经经济学和视觉科学专业知识的研究人员之间的合作，作为将视觉神经科学的高保真数据分析技术引入决策研究的一种手段。评估任务将在测试-重新测试协议中与DMN停用的操作交织在一起。在现有的荟萃分析中，估值和DMN效应已被证明在vmPFC中广泛共定位，但尚不清楚它们在个体中是来自相同还是不同的皮质包。测试-重测设计将允许在任务内部和任务之间比较激活模式。一种可能的结果是，评估和DMN效应可能与可分离的皮层参与模式有关。这一发现将推动敏感而具体的方法的发展，以读出与评估相关的活动，并将为研究大脑的评估系统如何被学习、环境和控制过程的参与所调节提供新的工具。另一种结果是估值和DMN效应可能表现出高度的地形对应关系。这一结果将激发这些看似不同的认知过程之间共享神经操作的新理论模型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Making good decisions -- in domains such as diet, finances, educational attainment, and public policy -- requires evaluating and comparing options that may be complex and multifaceted. Previous brain imaging research has shown that a frontal region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has an important role in producing subjective value estimates for individual options during decision making. Activity in this region varies with the subjective value of the options under consideration. However, vmPFC also participates in many other cognitive functions, and its internal functional organization is not yet understood in detail. In particular, it is not yet known whether valuation signals originate from the same parts of vmPFC that have been implicated in processes such as memory, planning, and self-referential thinking. The present research will compare the patterns of vmPFC activity associated with valuation and non-valuation processes in individual brains. The results will help develop improved methods for measuring the engagement of specific cognitive processes from brain imaging data. Because vmPFC is thought to encode variables akin to economic utility, this work will contribute to the growing interdisciplinary dialogue between neuroscience and economics. The project will enhance the usefulness of neuroscience methods for understanding economic decision making and thereby contribute to the advancement of societally relevant economic goals. The interdisciplinary nature of the project will create rich educational opportunities for students and trainees involved in conducting the research. The project will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test whether valuation effects in vmPFC can be topographically segregated from default-mode-network (DMN) effects when examined at the level of the single individual. The project involves a collaboration between researchers with expertise in neuroeconomics and vision science, as a means to import high-fidelity data analysis techniques from visual neuroscience to studies of decision making. Valuation tasks will be interleaved with manipulations of DMN deactivation in a test-retest protocol. Valuation and DMN effects have been shown to be diffusely co-localized within vmPFC in existing meta-analyses, but it is unknown whether they originate from the same or different cortical parcels in individuals. A test-retest design will allow comparisons of activation patterns within and across tasks. One possible outcome is that valuation and DMN effects may turn out to be associated with segregable patterns of cortical engagement. Such a finding would drive the development of sensitive and specific methods for reading out valuation-related activity, and would provide new tools for studying how the brain's valuation system is modulated by learning, context, and the engagement of control processes. An alternative outcome is that valuation and DMN effects may exhibit high topographic correspondence. This outcome would motivate new theoretical models of shared neural operations between these seemingly disparate cognitive processes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.