Taking stock of value in the orbitofrontal cortex.

Nat Rev Neurosci

Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA.

Published: July 2022

People with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have specific problems making decisions, whereas their other cognitive functions are spared. Neurophysiological studies have shown that OFC neurons fire in proportion to the value of anticipated outcomes. Thus, a central role of the OFC is to guide optimal decision-making by signalling values associated with different choices. Until recently, this view of OFC function dominated the field. New data, however, suggest that the OFC may have a much broader role in cognition by representing cognitive maps that can be used to guide behaviour and that value is just one of many variables that are important for behavioural control. In this Review, we critically evaluate these two alternative accounts of OFC function and examine how they might be reconciled.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10511019PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00589-2DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

orbitofrontal cortex
8
ofc function
8
ofc
6
stock orbitofrontal
4
cortex people
4
people damage
4
damage orbitofrontal
4
cortex ofc
4
ofc specific
4
specific problems
4

Similar Publications

Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations.

Elife

January 2025

Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Cognitive flexibility requires both the encoding of task-relevant and the ignoring of task-irrelevant stimuli. While the neural coding of task-relevant stimuli is increasingly well understood, the mechanisms for ignoring task-irrelevant stimuli remain poorly understood. Here, we study how task performance and biological constraints jointly determine the coding of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in neural circuits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Given the influence of cognitive abilities on life outcomes, there is inherent value in identifying genes involved in controlling learning and memory. Further, cognitive dysfunction is a core feature of many neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we use a combinatory in silico approach to identify human gene targets that will have an especially high likelihood of individually and directly impacting cognition.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objective: Non-invasive neuromodulation techniques (NIN), such as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), have been extensively researched for their potential to alleviate pain by reversing neuroplastic changes associated with neuropathic pain (NP), a prevalent and complex condition. However, treating NP remains challenging due to the numerous variables involved, such as different techniques, dosages and aetiologies. It is necessary to provide insights for clinicians and public healthcare managers to support clinical decision-making.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Reward Decision Network Disconnection in Poststroke Apathy: A Prospective Multimodality Imaging Study.

Hum Brain Mapp

February 2025

Department of Neurology, Centre for Leading Medicine and Advanced Technologies of IHM, the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.

Apathy is a common neuropsychiatric symptom following stroke, characterized by reduced goal-directed behavior. The reward decision network (RDN), which plays a crucial role in regulating goal-directed behaviors, is closely associated with apathy. However, the relationship between poststroke apathy (PSA) and RDN dysfunction remains unclear due to apathy heterogeneity, the confounding effect of depression and individual variability in lesion impacts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Stress-evoked dysfunctions of the frontal cortex (FC) are correlated with changes in the functioning of the glutamatergic system, and evidence demonstrates that noradrenergic transmission is an important regulator of this process. In the current study, we adopted a restraint stress (RS) model in male Wistar rats to investigate whether the blockade of β1 adrenergic receptors (β1AR) with betaxolol (BET) in stressed animals influences the body's stress response and the expression of selected signaling proteins in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).

Methods: The study was divided into two parts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!