title: An evolutionary computational theory of prefrontal executive function in decision-making.
abstract: The prefrontal cortex subserves executive control and decision-making, that is, the coordination and selection of thoughts and actions in the service of adaptive behaviour. We present here a computational theory describing the evolution of the prefrontal cortex from rodents to humans as gradually adding new inferential Bayesian capabilities for dealing with a computationally intractable decision problem: exploring and learning new behavioural strategies versus exploiting and adjusting previously learned ones through reinforcement learning (RL). We provide a principled account identifying three inferential steps optimizing this arbitration through the emergence of (i) factual reactive inferences in paralimbic prefrontal regions in rodents; (ii) factual proactive inferences in lateral prefrontal regions in primates and (iii) counterfactual reactive and proactive inferences in human frontopolar regions. The theory clarifies the integration of model-free and model-based RL through the notion of strategy creation. The theory also shows that counterfactual inferences in humans yield to the notion of hypothesis testing, a critical reasoning ability for approximating optimal adaptive processes and presumably endowing humans with a qualitative evolutionary advantage in adaptive behaviour.
authors.affiliation: Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France etienne.koechlin@upmc.fr.
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Koechlin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011323:Primates; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012377:Rodentia
keywords: Bayesian inference; decision-making; executive control; prefrontal cortex; reasoning; reinforcement learning