The Neuroscience of Human Decision-Making Through the Lens of Learning and Memory

Goal-Dependent Hippocampal Representations Facilitate Self-Control

Hippocampal activity linking past experiences and simulations of the future with current goals can play an important role in decision-making. The representation of information within the hippocampus may be especially critical in situations where one needs to overcome past rewarding experiences and exert self-control. Self-control success or failure may depend on how information is represented in the hippocampus and how effectively the representation process can be modified to achieve a specific goal. We test this hypothesis using representational similarity analyses of human (female/male) neuroimaging data during a dietary self-control task in which individuals must overcome taste temptations to choose healthy foods. We find that self-control is indeed associated with the way individuals represent taste information (valance) in the hippocampus and how taste representations there adapt to align with different goals/contexts. Importantly, individuals who were able to shift their hippocampal representations to a larger degree to align with the current motivation were better able to exert self-control when facing a dietary challenge. These results suggest an alternative or complementary neurobiological pathway leading to self-control success and indicate the need to update the classical view of self-control to continue to advance our understanding of its behavioral and neural underpinnings.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The paper provides a new perspective on what leads to successful self-control at the behavioral and neurobiological levels. Our data suggest that self-control is enhanced when individuals adjust hippocampal processing to align with current goals.

Integrated versus trial specific focus improves decision-making in older preschoolers

This study explored the effect of integrated-focus (focusing on a depiction of overall gains/losses) versus trial-focus (focusing on gains/losses at each trial) on choice in a preschool variant of the Iowa Gambling task. Participants included 65 preschoolers (M = 47.82, SD = 7.29). Children completed two versions of the Preschool Gambling task, three cool executive function tasks, a moral reasoning task, and an affective perspective taking task. The results indicated that while the integrated-focus condition led to improvement in the awareness of the game, the condition effect was moderated by age for decision-making choice; older preschoolers showed improvement in decision-making in the integrated focus condition, while younger preschoolers showed no condition effect. Further analysis indicated that differences in the increase of advantageous choice across blocks and the condition effect were partly explained by these differences in awareness. Furthermore, a component of cool executive function (shifting) was associated with the latter phase of decision-making. The findings additionally indicated an association of advantageous decision-making with moral/emotional measures, suggesting that the PGT may be a potentially useful clinical tool for early assessment. Finally, the findings of the current study have implications for how hot and cool executive function abilities may work together to enable adaptive decisions.

Item memorability has no influence on value-based decisions

While making decisions, we often rely on past experiences to guide our choices. However, not all experiences are remembered equally well, and some elements of an experience are more memorable than others. Thus, the intrinsic memorability of past experiences may bias our decisions. Here, we hypothesized that individuals would tend to choose more memorable options than less memorable ones. We investigated the effect of item memorability on choice in two experiments. First, using food images, we found that the same items were consistently remembered, and others consistently forgotten, across participants. However, contrary to our hypothesis, we found that participants did not prefer or choose the more memorable over the less memorable items when choice options were matched for the individuals' valuation of the items. Second, we replicated these findings in an alternate stimulus domain, using words that described the same food items. These findings suggest that stimulus memorability does not play a significant role in determining choice based on subjective value.

Stress effects on memory retrieval of aversive and appetitive instrumental counterconditioning in men

Extinction training creates a second inhibitory memory trace and effectively reduces conditioned responding. However, acute stress inhibits the retrieval of this extinction memory trace. It is not known whether this also applies to other forms of associative learning such as instrumental counterconditioning, where previously learned associations are reversed and paired with the opposite valence. Therefore, the current preregistered study investigates whether stress decreases the retrieval of instrumental counterconditioning memories with aversive and appetitive consequences. Fifty-two healthy men were randomly assigned to either a stress or control group and took part in a two-day instrumental learning paradigm. During a first phase, participants learned that pressing specific buttons in response to the presentation of four neutral stimuli either leads to gaining or losing money. During a second phase, two stimuli reversed their contingencies (counterconditioning). One day later, participants were exposed to acute stress or a control condition prior to the same task, which no longer included feedback about gains or losses. Stressed participants showed more approach behavior towards appetitive and less avoidance behavior towards aversive stimuli as compared to non-stressed participants. Our findings indicate that stress effects on memory retrieval differ depending on the associative learning approach in men. These differences might be related to stress effects on decision making and different motivational systems involved.

Explainable AI: A Neurally-Inspired Decision Stack Framework

European law now requires AI to be explainable in the context of adverse decisions affecting the European Union (EU) citizens. At the same time, we expect increasing instances of AI failure as it operates on imperfect data. This paper puts forward a neurally inspired theoretical framework called "decision stacks" that can provide a way forward in research to develop Explainable Artificial Intelligence (X-AI). By leveraging findings from the finest memory systems in biological brains, the decision stack framework operationalizes the definition of explainability. It then proposes a test that can potentially reveal how a given AI decision was made.

A Neuroscientific and Cognitive Literary Approach to the Treatment of Time in Calderón's Autos sacramentales

Time processing is a fundamental subject in cognitive sciences and neuroscience. Current research is deepening how our brains process time, revealing its essential role in human functionality and survival. In his autos sacramentales, Early Modern Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca portrays the relationships between human inner workings and the Christian concept of time. These plays portray the experience of the present, the perception of the flow of time, the measure of time raging from seconds to eternity, and the mental travel necessary to inhabit the past and future with the help of memory and imagination. Calderón explores how the dramatic form can portray all these temporal phenomena and how that portrait of time can constrain the dramatic structure. The different parts of the brain in charge of executive decisions, projections, memories, computation, and calibration are the basis that leads these characters to make the choices that will take them to the future they have cast for themselves. This paper analyzes how the processes that Calderón ascribed to the soul of his characters in the 17th century relate to ongoing cognitive and neuroscientific findings.

Memory for individual items is related to nonreinforced preference change

It is commonly assumed that memories contribute to value-based decisions. Nevertheless, most theories of value-based decision-making do not account for memory influences on choice. Recently, new interest has emerged in the interactions between these two fundamental processes, mainly using reinforcement-based paradigms. Here, we aimed to study the role memory processes play in preference change following the nonreinforced cue-approach training (CAT) paradigm. In CAT, the mere association of cued items with a speeded motor response influences choices. Previous studies with this paradigm showed that a single training session induces a long-lasting effect of enhanced preferences for high-value trained stimuli, that is maintained for several months. We hypothesized that CAT increases memory of trained items, leading to enhanced accessibility of their positive associative memories and in turn to preference changes. In two preregistered experiments, we found evidence that memory is enhanced for trained items and that better memory is correlated with enhanced preferences at the individual item level, both immediately and 1 mo following CAT. Our findings suggest that memory plays a central role in value-based decision-making following CAT, even in the absence of external reinforcements. These findings contribute to new theories relating memory and value-based decision-making and set the groundwork for the implementation of novel nonreinforced behavioral interventions that lead to long-lasting behavioral change.

The Hippocampus and Dorsolateral Striatum Integrate Distinct Types of Memories through Time and Space, Respectively

Several decades of research have established that different kinds of memories result from the activity of discrete neural networks. Studying how these networks process information in experiments that target specific types of mnemonic representations has provided deep insights into memory architecture and its neural underpinnings. However, in natural settings reality confronts organisms with problems that are not neatly compartmentalized. Thus, a critical problem in memory research that still needs to be addressed is how distinct types of memories are ultimately integrated. Here we demonstrate how two memory networks, the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum, may accomplish such a goal. The hippocampus supports memory for facts and events, collectively known as declarative memory and often studied as spatial memory in rodents. The dorsolateral striatum provides the basis for habits that are assessed in stimulus-response types of tasks. Expanding previous findings, the current work revealed that in male Long-Evans rats, the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum use time and space in distinct and largely complementary ways to integrate spatial and habitual representations. Specifically, the hippocampus supported both types of memories when they were formed in temporal juxtaposition, even if the learning took place in different environments. In contrast, the lateral striatum supported both types of memories if they were formed in the same environment, even at temporally distinct points. These results reveal for the first time that by using fundamental aspects of experience in specific ways, the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum can transcend their attributed roles in information storage.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The current paradigm in memory research postulates that different types of memories reflected in separate types of behavioral strategies result from activity in distinct neural circuits. However, recent data have shown that when rats concurrently acquired in the same environment of hippocampal-dependent spatial navigation and striatal-dependent approach of a visual cue, each of the two types of memories became dependent on both the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum. The current work reveals that the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum use distinct and complementary principles to integrate different types of memories in time and space: the hippocampus integrates memories formed in temporal proximity, while the lateral striatum integrates memories formed in the same space.

Editorial to the virtual issue highlighting neuroscience based research in eating disorders to mark the 49th Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting

OBJECTIVE

This virtual issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders highlights recently published research that is based on neuroscience concepts, to mark the 49th Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, in November 2019.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The collection of articles includes research published between 2018 and 2019 that fall within the broader field of clinical neuroscience. Those articles span a broad range of themes, including food intake regulation and reward circuitry, taste perception, decision-making, cognitive and emotional bias, and targeting altered brain circuits using novel therapeutic methods.

DISCUSSION

The eating disorders field as a whole is increasingly incorporating neuroscience-based concepts when studying those disorders and developing disease models. We hope that this virtual issue will further stimulate discussion and research that is focused on brain circuits and neurobiology to study etiology and pathophysiology of eating disorders to develop more effective treatments.

The hippocampus supports deliberation during value-based decisions

Choosing between two items involves deliberation and comparison of the features of each item and its value. Such decisions take more time when choosing between options of similar value, possibly because these decisions require more evidence, but the mechanisms involved are not clear. We propose that the hippocampus supports deliberation about value, given its well-known role in prospection and relational cognition. We assessed the role of the hippocampus in deliberation in two experiments. First, using fMRI in healthy participants, we found that BOLD activity in the hippocampus increased as a function of deliberation time. Second, we found that patients with hippocampal damage exhibited more stochastic choices and longer reaction times than controls, possibly due to their failure to construct value-based or internal evidence during deliberation. Both sets of results were stronger in value-based decisions compared to perceptual decisions.