Thorsten Kahnt, Ph.D.
Chief, Learning and Decision-Making Unit
National Institute on Drug Abuse

Orbitofrontal contributions to outcome-guided behavior

Research across species has shown that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for decision making. However, it is less clear what exactly the OFC is contributing to this function. I will present work using functional neuroimaging showing that the human OFC encodes associative information about specific outcomes, and more generally, the associative structure of the task. This information, often called a cognitive map, allows individuals to simulate the likely outcomes of decisions even when direct experience is lacking. In line with this, disrupting OFC function using network-targeted brain stimulation impairs decisions that critically rely on model-based inference but not behavior that can be based on direct experience.

Faculty Host: Daeyeol Lee