Effects of amygdala lesions on reward-value coding in orbital and medial prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: We examined the contribution of the amygdala to value signals within orbital prefrontal cortex (OFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (MFC). On each trial, monkeys chose between two stimuli that were associated with different quantities of reward. In intact monkeys, as expected, neurons in both OFC and MFC signaled the reward quantity associated with stimuli. Contrasted with MFC, OFC contained a larger proportion of neurons encoding reward quantity and did so with faster response latencies. Removing the amygdala eliminated these differences, mainly by decreasing value coding in OFC. Similar decreases occurred in OFC immediately before and after reward delivery. Although the amygdala projects to both OFC and MFC, we found that it has its greatest influence over reward-value coding in OFC. Notab

SUBMITTER: Rudebeck PH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3872005 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature