Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Uncertainty, neuromodulation, and attention.

Angela J Yu1, Peter Dayan

  • 1Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, London, United Kingdom. feraina@gatsby.ucl.ac.uk

Neuron
|June 10, 2005
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Latent subdimensions of anxiety and depression differentially influence exertion of effort in pursuit of reward versus avoidance of threat.

Translational psychiatry·2026
Same author

Neural signatures of model-based and model-free reinforcement learning across prefrontal cortex and striatum.

eLife·2026
Same author

Uncertainty for better and worse.

Current opinion in neurobiology·2026
Same author

Dopamine dynamics in human anterior cingulate cortex during Pavlovian-instrumental conflict.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Modality-general sensitivity of pupil responses to regularity violations.

Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same author

Metacognitive efficiency in learned value-based choice.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Spatiomolecular mapping reveals anatomical organization of heterogeneous cell types in the human nucleus accumbens.

Neuron·2026
Same journal

TGF-β1-induced endothelial transcytosis drives blood-brain barrier leakage during aging.

Neuron·2026
Same journal

Image space opens up for visual neuroscience.

Neuron·2026
Same journal

Septal GLP-1 receptors control alcohol taking and seeking.

Neuron·2026
Same journal

Microglial fitness in moderation: Tuning TREM2 signaling through Ptpn6.

Neuron·2026
Same journal

Human astrocytes keep time with inflammation.

Neuron·2026
See all related articles

The brain uses acetylcholine and norepinephrine to compute uncertainty from environmental interactions. These neuromodulators help us learn and predict outcomes in changing conditions.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computational Biology

Background:

  • Environmental interactions involve various forms of uncertainty.
  • Bayesian frameworks require managing uncertainty for optimal inference and prediction.
  • Neuromodulators are implicated in cognitive processes but their role in uncertainty computation is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose a model where acetylcholine and norepinephrine implement uncertainty computations in the brain.
  • To differentiate the roles of acetylcholine and norepinephrine in signaling expected versus unexpected uncertainty.
  • To explain how these neuromodulators interact for optimal inference and learning.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical modeling within a Bayesian statistical framework.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Integration of physiological, pharmacological, and behavioral data.
  • Proposal of novel attentional cueing tasks to test the model.

    • Main Results:

    • Acetylcholine signals expected uncertainty (known cue unreliability).
    • Norepinephrine signals unexpected uncertainty (unsignaled context switches).
    • Interactions between acetylcholine and norepinephrine enable adaptive inference and learning.

    Conclusions:

    • Acetylcholine and norepinephrine are key to the brain's uncertainty computations.
    • This model reconciles existing data on neuromodulator functions in cognition.
    • The proposed framework predicts specific interactions in attentional tasks.