During economic choice, different neurons in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encode individual offer values, the binary choice outcome, and the chosen value. Previous work suggests that these cell groups form a decision circuit, but the anatomical organization of this circuit is poorly understood. Using calcium imaging, we recorded from layer 2/3 (L2/3) and layer 5 (L5) of mice choosing between different juice flavors offered in variable amounts.
Decision variables were differentially represented across layers: juice-specific offer values and their spatial configuration were predominant in L2/3, while spatial offer values, chosen side, and chosen value were predominant in L5. Within each layer, functional cell groups were organized in clusters. The temporal dynamics of neural signals in the two layers indicated a combination of feed-forward and feed-back processes, and pointed to L5 as the locus for winner-take-all value comparison.
These results reveal that economic decisions rely on a complex architecture distributed across layers of OFC. We thank Junxiao Hou for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant numbers R21-DA042882 to C.P.S., R01-DA055709 to C.P.S., and R01-DC020034 to T.E.H.) and the McDonnell Center for System Neuroscience (Small Grant to A.L.).
Present address: Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA These authors contributed equally: Alessandro Livi, Manning Zhang. Department of Neuroscience, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA Alessandro Livi, Manning Zhang, Mary Carter, Heide Schoknecht, Andreas Burkhalter, Timothy E.
Holy & Camillo Padoa-Schioppa Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA Manning Zhang, Timothy E. Holy & Camillo Padoa-Schioppa Department of Economics, Washington University, St.
Louis, MO, USA Correspondence to Alessandro Livi or Camillo Padoa-Schioppa. The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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