Distributed activity in the human posterior putamen distinguishes goal-directed from habitual control.

ABSTRACT: How do some individuals rapidly form habits while others maintain flexible, goal-directed control? Using multivariate fMRI decoding in 199 participants, we show that distributed neural activity patterns in the left posterior putamen during initial learning predict individual behavioral strategy on a subsequent outcome devaluation test. This prediction generalized across two independent cohorts of healthy adults and psychiatric patients with heterogeneous diagnoses and was anatomically specific to the posterior putamen. Critically, predictive neural signatures were present during training, before strategy expression after devaluation, enabling prospective classification of habitual versus goal-directed behavior. These findings demonstrate that stable individual differences in behavioral con

SUBMITTER: Johri A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12699415 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature