Neural variability compresses with increasing belief precision during Bayesian inference

Abstract

To make optimal decisions, intelligent agents must learn latent environmental states from discrete observations. Bayesian frameworks argue that integration of evidence over time allows us to refine our state belief by reducing uncertainty about alternate possibilities. How is this increasing belief precision during learning reflected in the brain? We propose that moment-to-moment neural variability provides a signature that scales with the degree of reduction of uncertainty during learning. In a sample of 47 healthy adults, we found that BOLD signal variability (SD_BOLD, as measured with functional MRI) indeed compressed with successive exposure to decision-related evidence. Crucially, more accurate participants expressed greater SD_BOLD compression primarily in Default Mode Network regions, possibly reflecting the increasing precision of their latent state belief during more efficient learning. Further, computational modeling of behavior suggested that more accurate subjects held a more unbiased (flatter) prior belief over possible states that allowed for larger uncertainty reduction during learning, which was directly reflected in SD_BOLD changes. Our results provide first evidence that moment-to-moment neural variability compresses with increasing belief precision during effective learning, proposing a flexible mechanism for how we come to learn the probabilistic nature of the world around us.