title: Orbitofrontal neurons acquire responses to 'valueless' Pavlovian cues during unblocking.
abstract: The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been described as signaling outcome expectancies or value. Evidence for the latter comes from the studies showing that neural signals in the OFC correlate with value across features. Yet features can co-vary with value, and individual units may participate in multiple ensembles coding different features. Here we used unblocking to test whether OFC neurons would respond to a predictive cue signaling a 'valueless' change in outcome flavor. Neurons were recorded as the rats learned about cues that signaled either an increase in reward number or a valueless change in flavor. We found that OFC neurons acquired responses to both predictive cues. This activity exceeded that exhibited to a 'blocked' cue and was correlated with activity to the actual outcome. These results show that OFC neurons fire to cues with no value independent of what can be inferred through features of the predicted outcome.
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States mcdannal@bc.edu.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McDannald
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Guillem R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Esber
authors.affiliation: Center for Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Pittsburg, Pittsburg, United States.
authors.forename: Meredyth A
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0699-7748
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Wegener
authors.affiliation: Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Heather M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Wied
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tzu-Lan
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Stalnaker
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Joshua L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Trageser
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States geoffrey.schoenbaum@nih.gov.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schoenbaum
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004566:Electrodes; D008297:Male; D009812:Odorants; D055696:Olfactory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012201:Reward; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology; D013238:Stereotaxic Techniques; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
keywords: blocking; orbitofrontal; single unit