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Evidence accumulation occurs locally in the parietal cortex
Zhewei Zhang1,2, Chaoqun Yin1, Tianming Yang3
1Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Nature Communications
|July 30, 2022
Summary
Researchers identified the origin of evidence accumulation in the brain. Neural activity in the parietal cortex locally computes evidence, a key process for decision-making.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Decision Science
Background:
- Decision-making involves accumulating evidence, a neural process distributed across brain networks.
- The precise neural origin of evidence accumulation remains unidentified.
Purpose of the Study:
- To pinpoint the brain area responsible for initiating evidence accumulation.
- To investigate whether evidence accumulation is computed locally within a brain region.
Main Methods:
- A two-stage probabilistic reasoning task was designed.
- Neural responses of posterior parietal cortex neurons were analyzed using a linear encoding model.
- Neuronal activity was decomposed into early and late components representing distinct decision-making stages.
Main Results:
- The posterior parietal cortex exhibits two dissociable neural stages of decision-making.
- An early neural component reflects the transformation of sensory input into accumulable evidence.
- A late neural component represents evidence accumulation and decision formation.
Conclusions:
- Evidence accumulation signals are computed locally within the parietal cortex.
- The parietal cortex plays a critical role in both processing sensory evidence and accumulating it for decisions.
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