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Science 15 May 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5929, pp. 948 - 950
DOI: 10.1126/science.1168488
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Reports

Fictive Reward Signals in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex

Benjamin Y. Hayden,1,* John M. Pearson,1 Michael L. Platt1,2

The neural mechanisms supporting the ability to recognize and respond to fictive outcomes, outcomes of actions that one has not taken, remain obscure. We hypothesized that neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which monitors the consequences of actions and mediates subsequent changes in behavior, would respond to fictive reward information. We recorded responses of single neurons during performance of a choice task that provided information about the reward values of options that were not chosen. We found that ACC neurons signal fictive reward information and use a coding scheme similar to that used to signal experienced outcomes. Thus, individual ACC neurons process both experienced and fictive rewards.

1 Department of Neurobiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Center for Neuroeconomic Studies, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27701, USA.
2 Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27701, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hayden{at}neuro.duke.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Encoding of Reward and Space During a Working Memory Task in the Orbitofrontal Cortex and Anterior Cingulate Sulcus.
S. W. Kennerley and J. D. Wallis (2009)
J Neurophysiol 102, 3352-3364
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)