Localized and global computation for integrating prior value and sensory evidence in the mouse cerebral cortex

Abstract

AbstractAdaptive behavior requires integrating prior knowledge of action outcomes and sensory evidence for making decisions while maintaining prior knowledge for future actions. As outcome- and sensory-based decisions are often tested separately, it is unclear how these processes are integrated in the brain. In a tone frequency discrimination task with two sound durations and asymmetric reward blocks, we found that a temporal sequence of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice updated the prior reward expectations with incoming sensory inputs to compute sensory-confidence-dependent action values. The sensory inputs and choices were selectively decoded from the auditory cortex irrespective of reward priors and the secondary motor cortex, respectively, suggesting localized computations of task variables are required within single trials. In contrast, all the recorded regions represented prior values that needed to be maintained across trials. These results propose localized and global computations of task variables in different time scales in the cerebral cortex.