Multiple signals in anterior cingulate cortex
Open accessAbstract
Activity in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been linked both to commitment to a course of action, even when it is associated with costs, and to exploring or searching for alternative courses of action. Here we review evidence that this is due to the presence of multiple signals in ACC reflecting the updating of beliefs and internal models of the environment and encoding aspects of choice value, including the average value of choices afforded by the environment ('search value'). We contrast this evidence with the influential view that ACC activity is better described as reflecting task difficulty. A consideration of cortical neural network properties explains why ACC may carry such signals and also exhibit sensitivity to task difficulty.
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None of the regions identified in the present study were found to encode choice difficulty across both the cognitive and physical domains.
“Furthermore, although some of these domain-general regions may be involved in processing decision difficulty in certain contexts [50], this is not always the case [51], and none of the regions identified in the present study were found to encode choice difficulty across both the cognitive and physical domains.”
From Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying subjective valuation of effort costs (2017) · cites this paper as [51]
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- Authors
- Kolling, N., Behrens, T., Wittmann, M., & Rushworth, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Kolling, N
- ORCID
- Kolling, N
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Neurobiology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-04
- Volume
- 37
- Pages
- 36-43
- ISSN
- 0959-4388 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4863523
- OpenAlex
- W2229769847
- Cited by
- 249
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 18
- FWCI
- 3.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Neurobiology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (104765/Z/14/Z, 104765, 100973/Z/13/Z, 101092/Z/13/Z)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- anterior cingulate cortex, decision-making, commitment to action, exploration, belief updating, choice value, task difficulty, neural network properties, cost-based decision making
- MeSH terms
- Choice Behavior, Environment, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Signal Transduction
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