Neural economics and the biological substrates of valuation.
A recent flurry of neuroimaging and decision-making experiments in humans, when combined with single-unit data from orbitofrontal cortex, suggests major additions to current models of reward processing. We review these data and models and use them to develop a specific computational relationship between the value of a predictor and the future rewards or punishments that it promises. The resulting computational model, the predictor-valuation model (PVM), is shown to anticipate a class of single-unit neural responses in orbitofrontal and striatal neurons. The model also suggests how neural responses in the orbitofrontal-striatal circuit may support the conversion of disparate types of future rewards into a kind of internal currency, that is, a common scale used to compare the valuation of future behavioral acts or stimuli.
Montague
P Read
PR
Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Human NeuroImaging Lab, Division of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA. read@bcm.tmc.edu
Berns
Gregory S
GS
D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward