Electrophysiological population dynamics reveal context dependencies during decision making in human frontal cortex

This study investigated the electrophysiological representation of subjective value and context during decision-making in the human brain. Using stereo electroencephalography (sEEG) recordings from epilepsy patients performing an auction task, the researchers found that high-gamma activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) correlated positively with the subjective value of the current reward and negatively with the subjective value of the previous reward, demonstrating temporal context dependency. This context dependency was also observed in other brain regions, including the hippocampus and insula. Single-contact analysis revealed that value and context signals were separately represented in the OFC, with only a minority of contacts encoding both. State-space analysis further showed that context significantly impacted OFC population activity.

Wan-Yu Shih, Hsiang-Yu Yu, Cheng-Chia Lee, Chien-Chen Chou, Chien Chen, Paul W. Glimcher, Shih-Wei Wu