The precision of value-based choices depends causally on fronto-parietal phase coupling.
Which meal would you like today, chicken or pasta? For such value-based choices, organisms must flexibly integrate various types of sensory information about internal states and the environment to transform them into actions. Recent accounts suggest that these choice-relevant processes are mediated by information transfer between functionally specialized but spatially distributed brain regions in parietal and prefrontal cortex; however, it remains unclear whether such fronto-parietal communication is causally involved in guiding value-based choices. We find that transcranially inducing oscillatory desynchronization between the frontopolar and -parietal cortex leads to more inaccurate choices between food rewards while leaving closely matched perceptual decisions unaffected. Computational modelling shows that this exogenous manipulation leads to imprecise value assignments to the choice alternatives. Thus, our study demonstrates that accurate value-based decisions critically involve coherent rhythmic information transfer between fronto-parietal brain areas and establishes an experimental approach to non-invasively manipulate the precision of value-based choices in humans.
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research (SNS-Lab), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
Rafael
R
Polanía
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research (SNS-Lab), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland.|Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH of Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland.
Marius
M
Moisa
Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, New York 10962, USA.|Center for the Developing Brain, Child Mind Institute, New York, New York 10022, USA.
Alexander
A
Opitz
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research (SNS-Lab), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
Marcus
M
Grueschow
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research (SNS-Lab), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
Christian C
CC
Ruff
D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult