Format

Send to

Choose Destination
See comment in PubMed Commons below
J Neurosci. 2012 Nov 14;32(46):16417-23a. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3254-12.2012.

Action-specific value signals in reward-related regions of the human brain.

Author information

1
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom. thomas.fitzgerald@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

Estimating the value of potential actions is crucial for learning and adaptive behavior. We know little about how the human brain represents action-specific value outside of motor areas. This is, in part, due to a difficulty in detecting the neural correlates of value using conventional (region of interest) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses, due to a potential distributed representation of value. We address this limitation by applying a recently developed multivariate decoding method to high-resolution fMRI data in subjects performing an instrumental learning task. We found evidence for action-specific value signals in circumscribed regions, specifically ventromedial prefrontal cortex, putamen, thalamus, and insula cortex. In contrast, action-independent value signals were more widely represented across a large set of brain areas. Using multivariate Bayesian model comparison, we formally tested whether value-specific responses are spatially distributed or coherent. We found strong evidence that both action-specific and action-independent value signals are represented in a distributed fashion. Our results suggest that a surprisingly large number of classical reward-related areas contain distributed representations of action-specific values, representations that are likely to mediate between reward and adaptive behavior.

PMID:
23152624
PMCID:
PMC3549268
DOI:
10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3254-12.2012
[Indexed for MEDLINE]
Free PMC Article
PubMed Commons home

PubMed Commons

0 comments
How to join PubMed Commons

    Supplemental Content

    Full text links

    Icon for HighWire Icon for PubMed Central
    Loading ...
    Support Center