Control of Response Selection by Reinforcer Value Requires Interaction of Amygdala and Orbital Prefrontal Cortex

By Mark G. Baxter, A. Parker, C. Lindner, A. Izquierdo, Elisabeth A. Murray. Journal of Neuroscience, 2000

599 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Goal-directed actions are guided by expected outcomes of those actions. Humans with bilateral damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or the amygdala, are deficient in their ability to use information about positive and negative outcomes to guide their choice behavior. Similarly, rats and monkeys with orbital prefrontal or amygdala damage have been found to be impaired in their responses to changing values of outcomes. In the present study, we tested whether direct, functional interaction between the amygdala and the orbital prefrontal cortex is necessary for guiding behavior based on expected outcomes. Unlike control monkeys, rhesus monkeys with surgical disconnection of these two structures, achieved by crossed unilateral lesions of the amygdala in one hemisphere and orbital prefrontal cortex in the other, combined with forebrain commissurotomy, were unable to adjust their choice behavior after a change in the outcome (here, a reduction in the value of a particular reinforcer). The lesions did not affect motivation to work for a food reinforcer, or food preferences, per se. Hence, the amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex act as part of an integrated neural system guiding decision-making and adaptive response selection.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7ff8c96ad4f29c7b6fd7f8e6981ca290cd01e2c6

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Citations in the corpus

The amygdala and reward (2002, methodology): “A similar effect has been observed following CROSSED DISCONNECTION of the amygdala in one hemisphere and the orbital prefrontal cortex in the other hemispher”
The primate basal ganglia: parallel and integrative networks. (2003, background): “Orbital prefrontal cortex is involved in the development of reward-based learning and goal-directed behaviors (Butter and Snyder, 1972; Benevento et al., 1977; Rolls and Baylis, 1994; Meunier et al., 1997; Baxter et al., 2000; Hikosaka and Watanabe, 2000; Schultz et al., 2000).”
Functional Networks in Emotional Moral and Nonmoral Social Judgments (2002, background): “A possible explanation is that the medial OFC, which is intimately linked to the processing of social rules and emotions related to moral processing, down-regulates the activity of the amygdala in certain circumstances (Baxter et al., 2000).”
The Neuroscience of Natural Rewards: Relevance to Addictive Drugs (2002, background): “For example, amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex may play complementary roles in reward learning regarding acquisition of cue incentive value versus response selection (Schoenbaum et al., 1999; Baxter et al., 2000).”
Neurophysiology of performance monitoring and adaptive behavior. (2014, background): “This is particularly evident in studies using reversal learning (172, 261, 272, 274, 285, 351, 442) or reinforcer devaluation (25, 414, 415), or during extinction of a previously acquired instrumental response (65, 442).”
Multiple Forms of Value Learning and the Function of Dopamine (2009, background): “pairing the outcome with a malaise inducing substance such as lithium chloride, or feeding the animal to satiety on that outcome) (Hatfield et al., 1996; Malkova et al., 1997; Baxter et al., 2000; Pickens et al., 2003; Ostlund and Balleine, 2007).”
Understanding evaluation of faces on social dimensions. (2008, background): “An interesting hypothesis is that affective evaluation of faces in the amygdala not only enhances face processing in perceptual areas [34] but also influences approach and avoidance decisions computed in OFC [ 36 ].”
Neuroimaging studies of shifting attention: a meta-analysis (2004, background): “Thus, the process may have a great deal to do with reward mechanisms— an idea that has been investigated in animal models (Baxter et al., 2000; Roberts and Wallis, 2000) and modeled elegantly using neural networks (O'Reilly et al., 2002; Rougier and O'Reilly, 2002).”
From affect to control: Functional specialization of the insula in motivation and regulation (2017, background): “Evolutionarily, Ag and immediately adjacent portions of temporal pole and orbitofrontal cortex were developed for advanced chemoreception, particularly the association of behavioral states (approach/eating and avoidance of noxious environments or foods) with particular chemosensory representations.”
Anxiety and affective style: role of prefrontal cortex and amygdala. (2002, background): “Other work on shifts in behavior following reward devaluation also underscore the importance of interaction between the amygdala and orbital PFC (Baxter et al 2000).”
The amygdala, reward and emotion. (2007, background): “Some amygdala functions are carried out in concert with the OFC [56, 57 ], such as updating the values of expected outcomes.”
Gamma-band synchronization in the neocortex: novel analysis methods and their application to sensory and motivational systems (2013, background): “Complementary lesion studies suggested a causal role of OFC in the updating of stimulus values and the assignment of credit to behavioral choices associated with positive or negative outcome (Rolls et al., 1994; Baxter et al., 2000; Schoenbaum et al., 2002, 2009; Bohn et al., 2003b; Walton et al., 2”
Face processing occurs outside the fusiform 'face area' in autism: evidence from functional MRI. (2001, background): “For example, the amygdala has been shown to be involved in understanding a face as threatening or not (Morris et al., 1998), or monitoring the direction of gaze of a face (Kawashima et al., 1999), and establishing the reward value of stimuli in general (Baxter et al., 2000).”
Cocaine seeking habits depend upon dopamine-dependent serial connectivity linking the ventral with the dorsal striatum. (2008, unknown): “Thus, the disconnection manipulation should have behavioral effects that are very similar, if not identical, to the consequences of bilateral manipulations of either structure alone within the system (Everitt et al., 1991; Baxter et al., 2000; Han et al., 1997), but will have little or no effect i”