Dataset of cortical and subcortical single neuron activity during value-based tasks in macaque monkey

A key challenge in cognitive neuroscience is to provide an account of how the brain guides choice behavior toward rewarding outcomes in uncertain environments. Interaction between the frontal cortex and subcortical structures is critical for this type of decision-making. The frontal cortex is, however, not a homogeneous structure and is composed of subregions that are distinct based on their cytoarchitecture. How these distinct subregions uniquely contribute to decision-making is not well established. Further, little is known about how neurons in each subregion interact with each other, meaning that the cross-areal dynamics of reward-guided decision-making in frontal cortex are yet to be fully revealed. Here we present a dataset of 16,495 neurons recorded from 22 anatomically verified areas in 2 macaque monkeys across 340 behavioral sessions. Monkeys performed single- and two-alternative probabilistic value-based decision-making tasks where they made responses to stimuli that were associated with distinct probabilities of receiving different flavored juice outcomes. Our dataset includes behavior, neuronal spike times, and electrode locations based on cytoarchitectural features of Nissl and immunohistochemically stained tissue. Investigators can use this extensive dataset to further resolve the functions of, and interactions between, frontal and subcortical brain regions during reward-guided decision-making.