RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Inference based decisions in a hidden state foraging task: differential contributions of prefrontal cortical areas
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 679142
DO 10.1101/679142
A1 Vertechi, Pietro
A1 Lottem, Eran
A1 Sarra, Dario
A1 Godinho, Beatriz
A1 Treves, Isaac
A1 Quendera, Tiago
A1 Oude Lohuis, Matthijs Nicolai
A1 Mainen, Zachary F.
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/21/679142.abstract
AB Essential features of the world are often hidden and must be inferred by constructing internal models based on indirect evidence. Here, to study the mechanisms of inference we established a foraging task that is naturalistic and easily learned, yet can distinguish inference from simpler strategies such as the direct integration of sensory data. We show that both mice and humans learn a strategy consistent with optimal inference of a hidden state. However, humans acquire this strategy more than an order of magnitude faster than mice. Using optogenetics in mice we show that orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex inactivation impact task performance, but only orbitofrontal inactivation reverts mice from an inference-based to a stimulus-bound decision strategy. These results establish a cross-species paradigm for studying the problem of inference-based decision-making and begin to dissect the network of brain regions crucial for its performance.