Decision-making involves a little known brain region in the thalamus
CNRS
The team then tested the role of these two brain structures (the submedius thalamic nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex) in decision-making and adaptive behavior. The initial learning phase allowed the animals to learn that two different sounds (S1 and S2) each signaled a specific food reward. The lesions did not prevent the animals from learning that an auditory stimulus predicts a reward. On the other hand, animals with a lesion – of either the orbitofrontal cortex or the submedius thalamic nucleus – proved incapable of making this distinction, and thus of adapting. This study therefore identified the existence of a circuit between the thalamus and the cortex, which proved crucial to adaptive decision-making.