Functional specialization of medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex in inferential decision-making

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Decision Science

Background:

• Flexible decision-making requires inferring future outcomes and adapting behavior.
• The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is crucial for these abilities, with specialized subregions identified in animals.
• Understanding the specific roles of human OFC subregions in decision-making remains incomplete.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the information representation and functional interactions of human OFC subregions during inference-based decision-making.
• To elucidate the distinct contributions of medial OFC (mOFC) and lateral OFC (lOFC) to decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine human OFC activity during decision-making tasks.
• Analysis focused on information coding (context-general vs. context-specific) within mOFC and lOFC.
• Functional connectivity between OFC subregions and other brain areas (motor, frontoparietal) was assessed.

Main Results:

• Both mOFC and lOFC collectively represented inferred outcomes.
• mOFC exhibited context-general coding of outcomes, while lOFC showed context-specific coding.
• Distinct functional connectivity patterns were observed: mOFC with motor areas and lOFC with frontoparietal areas, suggesting differential roles in action execution and cognitive control.

Conclusions:

• Human OFC subregions play dissociable roles in decision-making.
• mOFC appears involved in motor execution, while lOFC contributes to cognitive control during behavioral updating.
• These findings advance our understanding of the neural basis of flexible decision-making.