Dissociable roles for the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex in cue-guided risk/reward decision making

Converging evidence from studies with animals and humans have implicated separate regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) corresponding to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), in mediating different aspects of reward-related decisions involving uncertainty or risk. However, the dissociable contributions of subregions of the ACC remain unclear, as discrepancies exist between human neuroimaging findings and preclinical rodent studies. To clarify how ventral vs. dorsal regions of the mPFC contribute to risk/reward decision making, the present study assessed the effects of inactivation of different subregions on performance of a "Blackjack task" that measured cue-guided decision making and shares similarities with paradigms used with humans. Male, Long-Evans rats were well-trained to choose between a Small/Certain reward vs a Large/Risky reward delivered with variable probabilities (i.e., good vs. poor-odds, 50% vs. 12.5%). The odds of obtaining the larger reward was signaled by auditory cues at the start of each trial. Inactivation of the ventral, infralimbic region of the mPFC increased risky choice selectively when the odds of winning were poor. By contrast, inactivation of the prelimbic and anterior cingulate regions of the dorsal mPFC led to suboptimal reductions in risky choice on good-odds trials. The effects of prelimbic vs anterior cingulate inactivations were associated with context-dependent alterations in reward vs negative feedback, respectively. These results further clarify the distinct yet complementary manners in which separate ACC regions promote optimal risk/reward decision making and complement neuroimaging findings that activity in human ventral vs dorsal ACC promotes risk aversion or risky choices.