title: Lateral orbitofrontal neurons acquire responses to upshifted, downshifted, or blocked cues during unblocking.
abstract: The lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) has been described as signaling either outcome expectancies or value. Previously, we used unblocking to show that lOFC neurons respond to a predictive cue signaling a 'valueless' change in outcome features (McDannald, 2014). However, many lOFC neurons also fired to a cue that simply signaled more reward. Here, we recorded lOFC neurons in a variant of this task in which rats learned about cues that signaled either more (upshift), less (downshift) or the same (blocked) amount of reward. We found that neurons acquired responses specifically to one of the three cues and did not fire to the other two. These results show that, at least early in learning, lOFC neurons fire to valued cues in a way that is more consistent with signaling of the predicted outcome's features than with signaling of a general, abstract or cached value that is independent of the outcome.
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States.|Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lopatina
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston College, Boston, United States.
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: Clay V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Styer
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Brian F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Sadacca
authors.affiliation: Department Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Joseph F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Cheer
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, United States.|Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States.|Department Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schoenbaum
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D012201:Reward
keywords: Pavlovian; blocking; neuroscience; orbitofrontal; rat; single unit