A triple dissociation across the medial, ventral, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex in rats making sequential foraging decisions

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is functionally heterogeneous across its medial-to-lateral axis, though the nature of this heterogeneity is unclear. The present study leveraged high-density neural recording across the medial-to-lateral span of the OFC using a neuroeconomic task in rats to clarify how functional heterogeneity within the OFC participates in sequential cost-benefit foraging. Lateral and ventral OFC contained opposing representations of an encountered reward’s subjective benefit and its associated opportunity costs, respectively. These representations directly competed to make accept-reject decisions during reward evaluation. If a poor-quality reward was mistakenly accepted, ventral and medial OFC participated in reevaluation processes during change-of-mind decisions. Collectively, these results suggest a triple dissociation in representational content and timing across the medial-to-lateral OFC during sequential foraging.