PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Zhihao Zhang (张之昊)
AU  - Avi Mendelsohn
AU  - Kirk F. Manson
AU  - Daniela Schiller
AU  - Ifat Levy
TI  - Dissociating Value Representation and Inhibition of Inappropriate Affective Response during Reversal Learning in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
AID  - 10.1523/ENEURO.0072-15.2015
DP  - 2015 Nov 01
TA  - eneuro
PG  - ENEURO.0072-15.2015
VI  - 2
IP  - 6
4099  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/2/6/ENEURO.0072-15.2015.short
4100  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/2/6/ENEURO.0072-15.2015.full
SO  - eneuro2015 Nov 01; 2
AB  - Decision-making studies have implicated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in tracking the value of rewards and punishments. At the same time, fear-learning studies have pointed to a role of the same area in updating previously learned cue–outcome associations. To disentangle these accounts, we used a reward reversal-learning paradigm in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in 18 human participants. Participants first learned that one of two colored squares (color A) was associated with monetary reward, whereas the other (color B) was not, and then had to learn that these contingencies reversed. Consistent with value representation, activity of a dorsal region of vmPFC was positively correlated with reward magnitude. Conversely, a more ventral region of vmPFC responded more to color A than to color B after contingency reversal, compatible with a role of inhibiting the previously learned response that was no longer appropriate. Moreover, the response strength was correlated with subjects’ behavioral learning strength. Our findings provide direct evidence for the spatial dissociation of value representation and affective response inhibition in the vmPFC.