MIT News breed · Science

Brain Organizes Options for Decision-Making

Neuroscientists at MIT have discovered how the brain maintains distinct representations of options during decision-making, ensuring that chosen and unchosen alternatives are clearly remembered.

The study, published in iScience, reveals that the brain uses coordinated electrical activity within neural ensembles to sort and represent options both before and after a choice is made, preventing interference between them.

Researchers trained animals to choose between two targets based on reward value. The options and their values were presented sequentially, requiring the brain to manage multiple representations of each target.

Using advanced algorithms to analyze neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, scientists observed that neural ensembles represented options based on their presentation order before a decision.

After the decision, new ensembles emerged, consistently representing chosen options together and unchosen options together, while keeping the two groups distinct.

This dynamic reorganization allows the brain to package the decision for downstream circuits, enabling efficient conversion of the choice into action, regardless of the initial presentation order.

Individual neurons were found to be flexible, joining different ensembles round by round, indicating that these ensembles are assembled ad hoc from multifunctional neurons rather than being permanent circuits.

The findings suggest the brain maintains distinct memories of each option, crucial for learning and credit assignment, illustrating dynamic subspace reorganization that supports option maintenance and selection in economic decisions.

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