Anterior Cingulate: Single Neuronal Signals Related to Degree of Reward Expectancy

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 296; no. 5573; pp. 1709 - 1711
• Main Authors: Shidara, Munetaka, Richmond, Barry J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for the Advancement of Science 31.05.2002; American Association for the Advancement of Science; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Action Potentials; Analysis of Variance; Anatomical correlates of behavior; Animal behavior; Animal memory; Animals; Anxiety Disorders; Behavior, Animal; Behavioral neuroscience; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain Mapping; Cues; Drug Abuse; Error rates; Expectation; Experimentation; Feedback (Response); Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gyrus Cinguli - physiology; Macaca mulatta; Monkeys & apes; Motivation; Neural Pathways; Neurology; Neurons; Neurons - physiology; Neuroscience; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - physiopathology; Physiological aspects; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Random Allocation; Research Methodology; Reward; Statistical Analysis; Stimuli; Substance-Related Disorders - physiopathology; Visual Stimuli; Yokes; Central nervous system; Discharge pattern; Monkey; Electrophysiology; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Cingulate cortex; Motivation; Animal; Primates; Reward; Expectation; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1069504

As monkeys perform schedules containing several trials with a visual cue indicating reward proximity, their error rates decrease as the number of remaining trials decreases, suggesting that their motivation and/or reward expectancy increases as the reward approaches. About one-third of single neurons recorded in the anterior cingulate cortex of monkeys during these reward schedules had responses that progressively changed strength with reward expectancy, an effect that disappeared when the cue was random. Alterations of this progression could be the basis for the changes from normal that are reported in anterior cingulate population activity for obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug abuse, conditions characterized by disturbances in reward expectancy.