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Characterising reward outcome signals in sensory cortex

Fitzgerald, TH; Friston, KJ; Dolan, RJ; (2013) Characterising reward outcome signals in sensory cortex. NeuroImage , 83 pp. 329-334. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.061. Green open access

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Abstract

Reward outcome signalling in the sensory cortex is held as important for linking stimuli to their consequences and for modulating perceptual learning in response to incentives. Evidence for reward outcome signalling has been found in sensory regions including the visual, auditory and somatosensory cortices across a range of different paradigms, but it is unknown whether the population of neurons signalling rewarding outcomes are the same as those processing predictive stimuli. We addressed this question using a multivariate analysis of high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in a task where subjects were engaged in instrumental learning with visual predictive cues and auditory signalled reward feedback. We found evidence that outcome signals in sensory regions localise to the same areas involved in stimulus processing. These outcome signals are non-specific and we show that the neuronal populations involved in stimulus representation are not their exclusive target, in keeping with theoretical models of value learning. Thus, our results reveal one likely mechanism through which rewarding outcomes are linked to predictive sensory stimuli, a link that may be key for both reward and perceptual learning.

Type: Article
Title: Characterising reward outcome signals in sensory cortex
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.061
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.061
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords: Credit assignment, Reward, Value learning, fMRI adaptation
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1399507
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