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Representations of Value in the Brain: An Embarrassment of Riches?

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  • Jeffrey J Stott
  • A David Redish

Abstract

Over the past two decades, neuroscientists have increasingly turned their attention to the question of how the brain implements decisions between differently valued options. This emerging field, called neuroeconomics, has made quick progress in identifying a plethora of brain areas that track or are modulated by reward value. However, it is still unclear how and where in the brain value coding takes place. A primate study by Strait and colleagues in this issue of PLOS Biology finds overlapping signals of value coding in two brain regions central to the valuation process: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum. This finding reconciles the primate and rodent literatures, provides valuable insight into the complexity of value computation, and helps set the agenda for future work in this area.This Primer examines a study that finds remarkably similar value-related information in two distinctly different brain regions, thereby begging the question, “do we really understand how the brain calculates value?” Read the Research Article.

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  • Jeffrey J Stott & A David Redish, 2015. "Representations of Value in the Brain: An Embarrassment of Riches?," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-7, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pbio00:1002174
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002174
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    1. Michael L. Platt & Paul W. Glimcher, 1999. "Neural correlates of decision variables in parietal cortex," Nature, Nature, vol. 400(6741), pages 233-238, July.
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