Laminar architecture of a decision circuit in the mouse orbitofrontal cortex.
7 affiliations
- 1Department of Neuroscience, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA. [email protected].
- 2Department of Neuroscience, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
- 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
- 4Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- 5Department of Neuroscience, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA. [email protected].
- 6Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA. [email protected].
- 7Department of Economics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA. [email protected].
Abstract
During economic choice, different neurons in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encode individual offer values, the binary choice outcome, and the chosen value. Previous work suggests that these cell groups form a decision circuit, but the anatomical organization of this circuit is poorly understood. Using calcium imaging, we recorded from layer 2/3 (L2/3) and layer 5 (L5) of mice choosing between different juice flavors offered in variable amounts. Decision variables were differentially represented across layers: juice-specific offer values and their spatial configuration were predominant in L2/3, while spatial offer values, chosen side, and chosen value were predominant in L5. Within each layer, functional cell groups were organized in clusters. The temporal dynamics of neural signals in the two layers indicated a combination of feed-forward and feed-back processes, and pointed to L5 as the locus for winner-take-all value comparison. These results reveal that economic decisions rely on a complex architecture distributed across layers of OFC.
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BibTeX
@article{livi2026laminar,
title = {{Laminar architecture of a decision circuit in the mouse orbitofrontal cortex.}},
author = {Alessandro Livi and Manning Zhang and Mary Carter and Heide Schoknecht and Andreas Burkhalter and Timothy E Holy and Camillo Padoa-Schioppa},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77799-0},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42894002},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Laminar architecture of a decision circuit in the mouse orbitofrontal cortex.
AU - Alessandro Livi
AU - Manning Zhang
AU - Mary Carter
AU - Heide Schoknecht
AU - Andreas Burkhalter
AU - Timothy E Holy
AU - Camillo Padoa-Schioppa
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/16
JO - Nature communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-77799-0
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42894002
AB - During economic choice, different neurons in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encode individual offer values, the binary choice outcome, and the chosen value. Previous work suggests that these cell groups form a decision circuit, but the anatomical organization of this circuit is poorly understood. Using calcium imaging, we recorded from layer 2/3 (L2/3) and layer 5 (L5) of mice choosing between different juice flavors offered in variable amounts. Decision variables were differentially represented across layers: juice-specific offer values and their spatial configuration were predominant in L2/3, while spatial offer values, chosen side, and chosen value were predominant in L5. Within each layer, functional cell groups were organized in clusters. The temporal dynamics of neural signals in the two layers indicated a combination of feed-forward and feed-back processes, and pointed to L5 as the locus for winner-take-all value comparison. These results reveal that economic decisions rely on a complex architecture distributed across layers of OFC.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -