Acetylcholine modulates prefrontal outcome coding during threat learning under uncertainty.

ABSTRACT: Outcomes can vary even when choices are repeated. Such ambiguity necessitates adjusting how much to learn from each outcome by tracking its variability. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been reported to signal the expected outcome and its discrepancy from the actual outcome (prediction error), two variables essential for controlling the learning rate. However, the source of signals that shape these coding properties remains unknown. Here, we investigated the contribution of cholinergic projections from the basal forebrain because they carry precisely timed signals about outcomes. One-photon calcium imaging revealed that as mice learned different probabilities of threat occurrence on two paths, some mPFC cells responded to threats on one of the paths, while other cells gained respons

SUBMITTER: Tu G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11882142 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature