Inferred Structure of a Neuronal Circuit for Economic Decisions

Previous work suggests that different groups of neurons in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) constitute the building blocks of a circuit in which economic decisions are formed. Here we used network inference analysis (Ising model) to shed light on the internal organization of this circuit. We examined populations of neurons recorded simultaneously, and inferred the functional couplings. We then computed a reduced, effective network ( EN ) where each node corresponded to an encoded variable. The EN had a recognizable structure, with enhanced couplings between input and output neurons supporting the same decision, and enhanced couplings between neurons encoding value variables with the same sign. This structure was highly reproducible across individuals and hemispheres. Importantly, it depended on the internal state of the animal and the behavioral conditions. The EN reproducibility decreased with the distance between cells but it increased with the number of cell pairs, suggesting that OFC operates as a single distributed assembly.