Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex

Abstract

The brain circuits of strategic decisions Primates can compute and integrate low-level decisions to make strategic adjustments to higher-level decisions. The neural substrates and mechanisms that allow this process are not known. Sarafyazd and Jazayeri performed single-cell recordings in the dorsomedial frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex of monkeys. They observed that the two brain areas, which have been implicated in error monitoring and the control of adaptive behavior, processed signals involved in causal inference. The anterior cingulate acted downstream of the dorsomedial frontal cortex. It used graded evidence derived from errors in low-level processes in a decision hierarchy to select between longer-term behavioral strategies. Science , this issue p. eaav8911