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| Poster #257 Integration of appetitive features in the orbitofrontal cortex during food-based choices |
| Matthew P.H. Gardner1, Evan E Hart2, Thomas Stalnaker3, Geoffrey Schoenbaum3,4,5 1Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada 2University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States 3National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, MD, United States 4Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States 5University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States |
Decisions about food options require integrating chemosensory features with non-chemosensory features such as food availability, quantity, and effort. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to play a key role in integrating this broad set of features for appetitive decision-making. Numerous studies suggest the OFC encodes the value of chosen outcomes and represents specific features of available options during decision processes. However, it remains unclear how the OFC integrates this information to assign values to offers during decision-making. To investigate this, we recorded activity from 485 neurons in the OFC while rats performed a food-based economic decision-making task. In this task, rats made appetitive decisions by integrating the type and amount of food to select their preferred offer. Across ~300 trials per session, rats exhibited consistent choice behavior, allowing for precise estimation of food preferences during the session. Our results show that features such as food type, food amount, offer location, choice location, and offer value are represented during the offer presentation phase, with value representations strengthening as the decision point approaches. Supporting the hypothesis that the OFC integrates these features to evaluate offers, we observed that the dimensionality of ensemble activity peaked during the offer presentation phase and decreased as the decision point neared. |