Figure 4B shows an example of a caudate neuron that encoded this kind of process. The starting value-related signal appears similar to a reward bias-related signal that has been identified in the caudate nucleus. In one notable study, monkeys were selleckchem trained to make a saccadic eye movement to a target flashed at one of two possible locations (Lauwereyns et al., 2002). Critically, one of the locations was paired with

water reward and the other was not rewarded. Behaviorally, the monkeys tended to have shorter RTs when instructed to make a saccadic eye movement to foveate the rewarded target. These reward-driven biases in RT were correlated with the magnitude of neuronal activation of oculomotor caudate neurons before target presentation. One parsimonious explanation for these results is that the basal

ganglia modulates the initial value and development of a decision variable based on reward expectation and other factors, ultimately biasing not just movement execution but also movement selection. These results are supported by several recent fMRI studies. When prior probability or reward association Bortezomib concentration is unequal for the two motion directions, human subjects’ behavior is biased toward the choice associated with higher prior probability or larger reward (Feng et al., 2009, Forstmann et al., 2010, Mulder et al., 2012, Nagano-Saito et al., 2012 and Voss et al., 2004). This bias reflects a nonzero starting value in a DDM-like decision process and is encoded in parts of the striatum (Forstmann et al., 2010 and Nagano-Saito et al., 2012). Collectively, these experimental results suggest that Rolziracetam the basal ganglia can incorporate

expectations about sensory stimuli and reward outcomes to bias the value of a developing decision variable. An even more expansive role for the basal ganglia in the formation of decision variables has been proposed by a recent theoretical study. Bogacz and Gurney (2007) suggested that the basal ganglia network may implement a multihypothesis sequential probability ratio test (MSPRT) for perceptual decision making. The MSPRT estimates the conditional probabilities of the multiple hypotheses being true given sensory stimuli and commits to decision i if the logarithm of the corresponding conditional probability (Li, which can take different forms including log-likelihood, log-likelihood ratios, or log-odds; Lepora and Gurney, 2012) reaches a predefined threshold. Li is proportional to a time integral of sensory evidence for one choice and normalized across all alternative choices. According to this model, the direct pathway, in which the striatum projects directly to the pallidal output neurons in GPi, relays the unnormalized values of these probabilities. The indirect pathway, in which cortical inputs are further processed in the interconnected STN-GPe circuits, gathers information related to all alternatives and provides the (possibly modifiable) normalization quantity through the STN-GPi projection.