The ventral striatum dissociates information expectation, reward anticipation, and reward receipt
- 11 June 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 117 (26), 15200-15208
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911778117
Abstract
Do dopaminergic reward structures represent the expected utility of information similarly to a reward? Optimal experimental design models from Bayesian decision theory and statistics have proposed a theoretical framework for quantifying the expected value of information that might result from a query. In particular, this formulation quantifies the value of information before the answer to that query is known, in situations where payoffs are unknown and the goal is purely epistemic: That is, to increase knowledge about the state of the world. Whether and how such a theoretical quantity is represented in the brain is unknown. Here we use an event-related functional MRI (fMRI) task design to disentangle information expectation, information revelation and categorization outcome anticipation, and response-contingent reward processing in a visual probabilistic categorization task. We identify a neural signature corresponding to the expectation of information, involving the left lateral ventral striatum. Moreover, we show a temporal dissociation in the activation of different reward-related regions, including the nucleus accumbens, medial prefrontal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex, during information expectation versus reward-related processing.Funding Information
- HHS | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (MH020002)
- HHS | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (MH57075)
- NSF | SBE | Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (SBE-0542013)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (NE 1713/1)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (NE 1713/2)
- UC | University of California, San Diego (RH094G-COTTRELL)
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