ACC causally supports learning -difficult- attention sets

We used focused ultrasound (FUS) sonication of the anterior cingualte and striatum to disrupt local processing during learning. FUS in ACC slowed down learning of atetntion sets – but only when the attentional demands were high and the task included the risk of loosing already attaiuned reward tokens. Under these cognitive and motivaitonally challenging conditions FUS reduce the ability to adapt and update attentional sets. See our paper Banaie Boroujeni et al. (2022) The anterior cingulate cortex causally supports flexible learning under motivationally challenging and cognitively demanding conditions. PLoS Biology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.04.455080.

Related News

The phase of firing of fronto-striatal neurons encodes learning variables

Our new paper shows that neurons in the striatum, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex encode learning variables in the phase of firing. We outline a powerful regression based analysis pipeline that revealed spiking activity of neurons relative to the phase of beta oscillations carries significant learning information during reversal learning. The paper can be downloaded […]

Fronto-Striatal Circuits Optimize Feature-based Attention and Learning

Our new publication (Oemisch et al. (2018) Feature Specific Prediction Errors and Surprise across Macaque Fronto-Striatal Circuits during Attention and Learning) provides the first 4-brain-area survey of how prediction error information in the anterior cingulate – ventral striatum and lateral prefrontal – caudate fronto-striatal loops relate to feature-based attention and learning. We found prediction errors […]

First Neuropharmacological Contribution

Congratulations to Ali and Mariann for the first neuropharmacological contribution from our laboratory with the article A computational psychiatry approach identifies how alpha-2A noradrenergic agonist Guanfacine affects feature-based reinforcement learning in the macaque . This study first surveys all 14 different tasks that have ever been used with Guanfacine in nonhuman primate studies and than […]