Videos footage from RuCCS Colloquium Talks can be found on the RuCCS YouTube Channel. For all other events, please check the sponsor's website for more detail.
To filter by event category, click on the event category link in the table below or use the menu on the right.
List of Past Events
"Predicting value-based choices: a neural population recording approach in nonhuman primates", Vincent McGinty (Rutgers Newark, Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience)
Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 01:00pm - 02:30pm
Busch Campus, Psych 105
Abstract: A fundamental goal in neuroeconomics is to identify how neural representations of value relate to value-based decisions. Although the value-coding neurons of the primate orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have long been scrutinized in this role, we still lack a complete understanding of their contribution to behavior. In particular, we lack a clear account of how variability in the neural representation of value co-varies with (i.e. predicts) choices on a trial-by-trial basis. In this talk, I will describe a population approach to choice prediction, one that leverages the simultaneous activity of many OFC neurons recorded during the performance of a sequential two-alternative economic choice task in behaving monkeys. Preliminary analyses suggest two distinct modes of choice-predictive signal in OFC neurons. One mode depends on a subjective value signal encoded by ensembles of many OFC neurons; and the second depends on single neurons that appear to represent the upcoming choice in binary fashion (i.e. without reference to value). This suggests that the primate OFC contains a multitude of choice-related signals that may contribute to the decision process.
Recommended readings:
For an intro to my work, a recently published study in eNeuro: Overt Attention toward Appetitive Cues Enhances Their Subjective Value, Independent of Orbitofrontal Cortex Activity
For a more general background, a classic paper on neural activity in decision-making: A relationship between behavioral choice and the visual responses of neurons in macaque MT, by Britten KH, Newsome WT, Shadlen MN, Celebrini S, Movshon JA.
