The left hemisphere learns what is right: Hemispatial reward learning depends on reinforcement learning processes in the contralateral hemisphere

Abstract

Orienting biases refer to consistent, trait-like direction of attention or locomotion toward one side of space. Recent studies suggest that such hemispatial biases may determine how well people memorize information presented in the left or right hemifield. Moreover, lesion studies indicate that learning rewarded stimuli in one hemispace depends on the integrity of the contralateral striatum. However, the exact neural and computational mechanisms underlying the influence of individual orienting biases on reward learning remain unclear. Because reward-based behavioural adaptation depends on the dopaminergic system and prediction error (PE) encoding in the ventral striatum, we hypothesized that hemispheric asymmetries in dopamine (DA) function may determine individual spatial biases in reward learning. To test this prediction, we acquired fMRI in 33 healthy human participants while they performed a lateralized reward task. Learning differences between hemispaces were assessed by presenting stimuli, assigned to different reward probabilities, to the left or right of central fixation, i.e. presented in the left or right visual hemifield. Hemispheric differences in DA function were estimated through differential fMRI responses to positive vs. negative feedback in the left vs. right ventral striatum, and a computational approach was used to identify the neural correlates of PEs. Our results show that spatial biases favoring reward learning in the right (vs. left) hemifield were associated with increased reward responses in the left hemisphere and relatively better neural encoding of PEs for stimuli presented in the right (vs. left) hemifield. These findings demonstrate that trait-like spatial biases implicate hemisphere-specific learning mechanisms, with individual differences between hemispheres contributing to reinforcing spatial biases.