Surprise! A unifying model of dorsal anterior cingulate function?

Few brain regions' functions have been debated as intensely as those of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. A computational model now suggests that seemingly diverse cingulate responses may be explained by a single construct, 'negative surprise', which occurs when actions do not produce the expected outcome.

[1]  Peter Dayan,et al.  A Neural Substrate of Prediction and Reward , 1997, Science.

[2]  Timothy E. J. Behrens,et al.  Learning the value of information in an uncertain world , 2007, Nature Neuroscience.

[3]  D. Meyer,et al.  A Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation , 1993 .

[4]  Keiji Tanaka,et al.  Medial prefrontal cell activity signaling prediction errors of action values , 2007, Nature Neuroscience.

[5]  John M. Pearson,et al.  Surprise Signals in Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Neuronal Encoding of Unsigned Reward Prediction Errors Driving Adjustment in Behavior , 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[6]  M. Botvinick,et al.  Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. , 2001, Psychological review.

[7]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  The neural basis of human error processing: reinforcement learning, dopamine, and the error-related negativity. , 2002, Psychological review.

[8]  Joshua W. Brown,et al.  Learned Predictions of Error Likelihood in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex , 2005, Science.

[9]  Timothy E. J. Behrens,et al.  Optimal decision making and the anterior cingulate cortex , 2006, Nature Neuroscience.

[10]  Joshua W. Brown,et al.  Medial prefrontal cortex activity correlates with time-on-task: What does this tell us about theories of cognitive control? , 2011, NeuroImage.

[11]  M. Walton,et al.  Separate neural pathways process different decision costs , 2006, Nature Neuroscience.

[12]  Ryan K. Jessup,et al.  Error Effects in Anterior Cingulate Cortex Reverse when Error Likelihood Is High , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[13]  Jim M. Monti,et al.  Expectation and Surprise Determine Neural Population Responses in the Ventral Visual Stream , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[14]  Tobias Teichert,et al.  The dorsal medial frontal cortex is sensitive to time on task, not response conflict or error likelihood , 2011, NeuroImage.

[15]  Joshua W. Brown,et al.  Medial prefrontal cortex as an action-outcome predictor , 2011, Nature Neuroscience.