Neural Correlates of Instrumental Contingency Learning: Differential Effects of Action–Reward Conjunction and Disjunction

Abstract

Contingency theories of goal-directed action propose that experienced disjunctions between an action and its specific consequences, as well as conjunctions between these events, contribute to encoding the action-outcome association. Although considerable behavioral research in rats and humans has provided evidence for this proposal, relatively little is known about the neural processes that contribute to the two components of the contingency calculation. Specifically, while recent findings suggest that the influence of action-outcome conjunctions on goal-directed learning is mediated by a circuit involving ventromedial prefrontal, medial orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsomedial striatum, the neural processes that mediate the influence of experienced disjunctions between these events are unknown. Here we show differential responses to probabilities of conjunctive and disjunctive reward deliveries in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the dorsomedial striatum, and the inferior frontal gyrus. Importantly, activity in the inferior parietal lobule and the left middle frontal gyrus varied with a formal integration of the two reward probabilities, ⌬P, as did response rates and explicit judgments of the causal efficacy of the action.

Action-value comparisons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex control choice between goal-directed actions

“…In particular, we found that activity in the OFC tracked the chosen action contingency, which is equivalent to the expected reward value in this task. A number of studies have found expected reward signals in this region1427282930313233, as well as the medial prefrontal cortex3235 and amygdala36. Some studies have also found that the reward signal in the OFC precedes the dlPFC response37, which implies that reward value information is relayed from the OFC to the dlPFC.…”

Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience.

“…One system, called the “act/outcome” system, is sensitive to the contingency between response and reinforcer. Contingency is “the difference between the probability of obtaining a target reward (r) given that a specific action (a) is performed and the probability of gaining the reward in the absence of the action” (Liljeholm, Tricomi, O'Doherty, & Balleine, 2011, p. 2474). The act/outcome system leads to “flexible” learning, and it is sensitive to contingency changes in the reward.…”

Changing views of emotion regulation and neurobiological models of the mechanism of action of psychotherapy

“…Whereas parietal and temporal association cortices surround visual, auditory, and somatosensory areas, the ventromedial/orbitofrontal cortex and the anterior insula are adjacent to primary olfactory and gustatory areas (Rolls, 2000). Neurophysiological studies in laboratory animals and functional imaging in humans show that associative memory to rewarding or aversive experiences are stored in these areas (Balleine, Leung, & Ostlund, 2011;Gottfried & Zelano, 2011;Howard, Gottfried, Tobler, & Kahnt, 2015;Liljeholm, Tricomi, O'Doherty, & Balleine, 2011;Noonan, Kolling, Walton, & Rushworth, 2012;Parkes, Bradfield, & Balleine, 2015;Rudebeck, Saunders, Prescott, Chau, & Murray, 2013;Schoenbaum, Roesch, Stalnaker, & Takahashi, 2009).…”