Abstract
Foraging for resources is a fundamental behavior balancing systematic search and strategic disengagement. The foraging behavior of primates is especially complex and requires long-term memory, value comparison, strategic planning, and decision-making. Here we provide evidence from two different foraging tasks that neurons in primate posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) signal decision salience during foraging to motivate disengagement from the current strategy. In our foraging tasks, salience refers to the difference between decision thresholds and the net harvested reward. Salience signals were stronger in poor foraging contexts than rich ones, suggesting low harvest rates recruit mechanisms in PCC that regulate strategic disengagement and exploration during foraging. Barack et al. report that foraging salience motivated strategic disengagement in two distinct tasks. Posterior cingulate neurons preferentially signaled salience and forecast divergent choices when reward rates were low, suggesting a role in the strategic control of behavior.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 339-347.e5 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Neuron |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Oct 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
This work was supported by the National Eye Institute of the NIH ( R01 EY013496 to M.L.P.) and an Incubator Award from the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences . We thank Ben Hayden for designing the patch foraging task; Jean-François Gariépy for assistance in designing the traveling salesman task; John Pearson, Geoff Adams, Nick DeWind, and Greg Jensen for technical help; Monica Carlson for animal husbandry; and numerous commenters for helpful feedback.Keywords
- decision-making
- disengagement behavior
- foraging
- posterior cingulate cortex
- salience