Lateral orbitofrontal neurons acquire responses to upshifted, downshifted, or blocked cues during unblocking
Nina Lopatina,
Michael A McDannald,
Clay V Styer,
Brian F Sadacca,
Joseph F Cheer,
Geoffrey Schoenbaum
Affiliations
Nina Lopatina
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States; Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
Michael A McDannald
Department of Psychology, Boston College, Boston, United States
Clay V Styer
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States
Brian F Sadacca
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States
Joseph F Cheer
Department Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
Geoffrey Schoenbaum
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States; Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States; Department Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
The lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) has been described as signaling either outcome expectancies or value. Previously, we used unblocking to show that lOFC neurons respond to a predictive cue signaling a ‘valueless’ change in outcome features (McDannald, 2014). However, many lOFC neurons also fired to a cue that simply signaled more reward. Here, we recorded lOFC neurons in a variant of this task in which rats learned about cues that signaled either more (upshift), less (downshift) or the same (blocked) amount of reward. We found that neurons acquired responses specifically to one of the three cues and did not fire to the other two. These results show that, at least early in learning, lOFC neurons fire to valued cues in a way that is more consistent with signaling of the predicted outcome’s features than with signaling of a general, abstract or cached value that is independent of the outcome.
