Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex

Humans process information hierarchically. In the presence of hierarchies, sources of failures are ambiguous. Humans resolve this ambiguity by assessing their confidence after one or more attempts. To understand the neural basis of this reasoning strategy, we recorded from dorsomedial frontal cortex...

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Main Authors: Sarafyazd, Morteza, Jazayeri, Mehrdad
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Format: Article
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2019
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122955
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author Sarafyazd, Morteza
Jazayeri, Mehrdad
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Sarafyazd, Morteza
Jazayeri, Mehrdad
author_sort Sarafyazd, Morteza
collection MIT
description Humans process information hierarchically. In the presence of hierarchies, sources of failures are ambiguous. Humans resolve this ambiguity by assessing their confidence after one or more attempts. To understand the neural basis of this reasoning strategy, we recorded from dorsomedial frontal cortex (DMFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of monkeys in a task in which negative outcomes were caused either by misjudging the stimulus or by a covert switch between two stimulus-response contingency rules. We found that both areas harbored a representation of evidence supporting a rule switch. Additional perturbation experiments revealed that ACC functioned downstream of DMFC and was directly and specifically involved in inferring covert rule switches. These results‏ reveal the computational principles of hierarchical reasoning, as implemented by cortical circuits.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1229552022-09-30T12:41:27Z Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex Sarafyazd, Morteza Jazayeri, Mehrdad Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Humans process information hierarchically. In the presence of hierarchies, sources of failures are ambiguous. Humans resolve this ambiguity by assessing their confidence after one or more attempts. To understand the neural basis of this reasoning strategy, we recorded from dorsomedial frontal cortex (DMFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of monkeys in a task in which negative outcomes were caused either by misjudging the stimulus or by a covert switch between two stimulus-response contingency rules. We found that both areas harbored a representation of evidence supporting a rule switch. Additional perturbation experiments revealed that ACC functioned downstream of DMFC and was directly and specifically involved in inferring covert rule switches. These results‏ reveal the computational principles of hierarchical reasoning, as implemented by cortical circuits. 2019-11-15T18:29:34Z 2019-11-15T18:29:34Z 2019-05 2018-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0036-8075 1095-9203 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122955 Sarafyazd, Morteza and Mehrdad Jazayeri. "Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex." Science 364, 6441 (May 2019): eaav8911 © 2019 The Authors http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aav8911 Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Prof. Jazayeri via Courtney Crummett
spellingShingle Sarafyazd, Morteza
Jazayeri, Mehrdad
Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title_full Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title_fullStr Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title_full_unstemmed Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title_short Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
title_sort hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122955
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