Abstract
Decisions are influenced by recent experience, but the neural basis for this phenomenon is not well understood. Here, we address this question in the context of action selection. We focused on activity in the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg), a mesencephalic region that provides input to several nuclei in the action selection network, in well-trained mice selecting actions based on sensory cues and recent trial history. We found that, at the time of action selection, the activity of many PPTg neurons reflected the action on the previous trial and its outcome, and the strength of this activity predicted the upcoming choice. Further, inactivating the PPTg predictably decreased the influence of recent experience on action selection. These findings suggest that PPTg input to downstream motor regions, where it can be integrated with other relevant information, provides a simple mechanism for incorporating recent experience into the computations underlying action selection.
Highlights
Selecting actions in a dynamic environment should take into account both sensory input and internally-generated estimates of action value
Given its connectivity with the basal ganglia and input to the SC, we hypothesized that pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg) activity may represent recent information that could be relevant to the selection of upcoming choices
This study examined the neural basis by which action selection is influenced by recent experience
Summary
Selecting actions in a dynamic environment should take into account both sensory input and internally-generated estimates of action value. Integrating these sources of information is well-described by a Bayesian framework in which estimates of action value are continually updated by incoming sensory information in order to select the most valuable action (Kording and Wolpert, 2006; Gold and Shadlen, 2007; Kim and Basso, 2010) This updating of action values, based on experiencing the outcomes associated with past actions, is thought to be mediated primarily by striatal circuits (Lau and Glimcher, 2007, 2008; Histed et al, 2009; Tai et al, 2012; Kim et al, 2013). In environments in which only the recent past is relevant to action value, which is often the case in the real world, a simpler complementary mechanism would be to maintain short-term representations of the most recent actions and their outcomes that directly modulate the action selection process
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