In non-operant conditioning, learning occurs on what action to perform or which choice is best out of the available choices; animals use previous encounters of one particular choice with the objects/actions/occurrences that are available for choice.
But animals with what is described to have an improved cerebral cortex for instance chimpanzees and monkeys are capable of deducing the end result of any particular decision considering past comparable cases though they may have not been put through such decisions.
Therefore, decision making occurs between proscriptive behaviour plans and those that are based on informed decisions. In primates the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) of the brain maintains this delicate balance. It means that the OFC is not only involved in the decision making process but also assists in reactivation the internal system primate employs to assess just how good an option is.
Despite all this information, people still do not know if OFC is involved in deliberation or if different jobs are executed through certain cortical pathways. But guess what, it’s pretty hard to study this though.
A Japanese research team addressed this question, as described in the paper released in Nature Communications on August 28, 2024. They produced new behavioural tasks the group had not explored before as well as utilising a method they employed in a previous exploration of the same theme.
With this approach, they stimulated particular neural circuits from the OFC and revealed their respective function. This research is prepared by Kei Oyama of The National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology and Group Leader Takafumi Minamimoto.
In the experiment macaque monkeys performed actions but chose between two options. They received pictures and a given amount of juice depending on how they answered the questions. After some time, the monkeys learned that some of the pictures showed them certain measures of juice.
The scientists noted that the set of images they showed to the animals would sometimes change now and then. They’d also reverse the good and the bad of the choices, so that what was bad was good, and what is good was bad. These tasks determined how efficient these monkeys were in undergoing problem solving with features they had previously encountered.
But while monkeys performed these activities, the researchers utilised a specific instrument called the chemogenetic receptor. This receptor was switched on and off by a specific drug to regulate OFC neurons.
The scientists identified what these pathways do, by observing the changes in the monkeys’ performance. According to Oyama, “We might be able to develop new therapies that return normal processing in patients by manipulating these two distinct nerve pathways.”
He also says, “In robotics and AI, the knowledge of how the brain thinks can be useful in constructing devices that function in one way and then transform to function in an entirely different way when called upon.”
Reference:
The. Revealing the neuronal pathways involved in adaptive decision-making in primates.
