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Peer-reviewedCC BYCell Reports

Inferential planning in the frontal cortex

  • Francesco Donnarumma1,2
  • Thomas Parr3,4
  • Karl John Friston5
  • James C. R. Whittington6,4
  • Giovanni Pezzulo7,8
8 affiliations
  1. 1Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
  2. 2National Research Council
  3. 3Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
  4. 4University of Oxford
  5. 5Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
  6. 6Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  7. 7Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: [email protected]
  8. 8National Research Council of Italy
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Abstract

How the brain plans and maintains sequences of future actions remains a central question in systems neuroscience. Studies in the frontal cortex revealed that multiple elements of a sequence are represented simultaneously in separable neural subspaces, challenging classical sequential planning models. Here, we show that these representations emerge naturally under inferential planning, in which sequential actions are inferred from sensory evidence and goals. Using a hierarchical generative model, we reproduce key neural phenomena observed in the primate frontal cortex, including the simultaneous activation of multiple plan elements, the emergence of (almost) orthogonal "memory" subspaces, and their reuse across forward and backward tasks. Our approach provides a mechanistic account of how probabilistic inference over control states produces distributed neural representations of plans. This framework unifies planning, working memory, and motor preparation, and generates predictions about the dynamics of active inference, the role of subspaces, and the impact of uncertainty on sequence processing.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{donnarumma2026inferential,
  title = {{Inferential planning in the frontal cortex}},
  author = {Francesco Donnarumma and Thomas Parr and Karl John Friston and James C. R. Whittington and Giovanni Pezzulo},
  journal = {Cell Reports},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117905},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117905},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Inferential planning in the frontal cortex
AU  - Francesco Donnarumma
AU  - Thomas Parr
AU  - Karl John Friston
AU  - James C. R. Whittington
AU  - Giovanni Pezzulo
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/28
JO  - Cell Reports
DO  - 10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117905
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117905
AB  - How the brain plans and maintains sequences of future actions remains a central question in systems neuroscience. Studies in the frontal cortex revealed that multiple elements of a sequence are represented simultaneously in separable neural subspaces, challenging classical sequential planning models. Here, we show that these representations emerge naturally under inferential planning, in which sequential actions are inferred from sensory evidence and goals. Using a hierarchical generative model, we reproduce key neural phenomena observed in the primate frontal cortex, including the simultaneous activation of multiple plan elements, the emergence of (almost) orthogonal "memory" subspaces, and their reuse across forward and backward tasks. Our approach provides a mechanistic account of how probabilistic inference over control states produces distributed neural representations of plans. This framework unifies planning, working memory, and motor preparation, and generates predictions about the dynamics of active inference, the role of subspaces, and the impact of uncertainty on sequence processing.
SN  - 2211-1247
SN  - 2639-1856
ER  -