The anterior cingulate cortex directs exploration of alternative strategies
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Abstract
The ability to adjust one's behavioral strategy in complex environments is at the core of cognition. Doing so efficiently requires monitoring the reliability of the ongoing strategy and, when appropriate, switching away from it to evaluate alternatives. Studies in humans and non-human primates have uncovered signals in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that reflect the pressure to switch away from the ongoing strategy, whereas other ACC signals relate to the pursuit of alternatives. However, whether these signals underlie computations that actually underpin strategy switching or merely reflect tracking of related variables remains unclear. Here we provide causal evidence that the rodent ACC actively arbitrates between persisting with the ongoing behavioral strategy and temporarily switching away to re-evaluate alternatives. Furthermore, by individually perturbing distinct output pathways, we establish that the two associated computations-determining whether to switch strategy and committing to the pursuit of a specific alternative-are segregated in the ACC microcircuitry.
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Activity in ACC has been linked to information seeking and initiation of behavioral change.
“Activity in ACC has also been linked to information seeking and initiation of behavioral change14,17,22,62–66”
From Interpretable abstractions of artificial neural networks predict behavior and neural activity during human information gathering (2026) · cites this paper as [66]
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- Authors
- Tervo, D. G. R., Kuleshova, E., Manakov, M., Proskurin, M., Karlsson, M., Lustig, A., Behnam, R., & Karpova, A. Y.
- Affiliations
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Karpova, Alla Y.
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-06
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1876-1887.e6
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3156958386
- Cited by
- 97
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 8.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 366 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- anterior cingulate cortex, strategy switching, behavioral flexibility, strategy monitoring, microcircuitry, rodent behavior, causal manipulation
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Decision Making, Exploratory Behavior, Feeding Behavior, Gyrus Cinguli, Male, Pyramidal Tracts, Rats, Long-Evans, Rats
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