Abstract
Humans and other primates can reverse their choice of stimuli in one trial when the rewards delivered by the stimuli change or reverse. Rapidly changing our behavior when the rewards change is important for many types of behavior, including emotional and social behavior. It is shown in a one-trial rule-based Go-NoGo deterministic visual discrimination reversal task to obtain points, that the human right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and adjoining inferior frontal gyrus is activated on reversal trials, when an expected reward is not obtained, and the non-reward allows the human to switch choices based on a rule. This reward reversal goes beyond model-free reinforcement learning. This functionality of the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex shown here in very rapid, one-trial, rule-based changes in human behavior when a reward is not received is related to the emotional and social changes that follow orbitofrontal cortex damage, and to depression in which this non-reward system is oversensitive and over-connected.
Highlights
The human orbitofrontal cortex is a key brain region involved in emotion, and this is related in part to its roles in representing reward (Rolls 2014, 2019b, 2019c; Rolls et al 2020b)
It is shown in a one-trial rule-based Go-NoGo deterministic visual discrimination reversal task to obtain points, that the human right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and adjoining inferior frontal gyrus is activated on reversal trials, when an expected reward is not obtained, and the non-reward allows the human to switch choices based on a rule
The type of reward reversal investigated here is key in understanding the human orbitofrontal cortex, because it is performed in one trial which indicates great flexibility of reward-related behavior, is non-associative, cannot be accounted for by model-free reinforcement learning, and represents a primate specialization that cannot be performed by rodents
Summary
The human orbitofrontal cortex is a key brain region involved in emotion, and this is related in part to its roles in representing reward (Rolls 2014, 2019b, 2019c; Rolls et al 2020b). In the research described here, we show that when behavior must change very rapidly, in one trial, because a reward has not been obtained, the lateral orbitofrontal cortex is activated. It is shown that in this reward reversal task the human right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and adjoining inferior frontal gyrus is activated. These regions are implicated causally in the reversal by previous findings showing that a similar non-probabilistic reward reversal task is impaired (indicated by a failure to reverse), in humans with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (Rolls et al 1994)
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