An Investigation of Neural Dynamics of the Prefrontal Cortex in Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

Decision-making under uncertainty often requires arbitrating between exploiting the current behavioral strategy with some possible adjustments versus exploring new behavioral strategies instead. This «exploitation-exploration» dilemma is critical for efficient adaptive behaviour in an open-ended and changing everyday environment and is assumed to be fundamental for executive control and decision-making processes. In the later publications on the computational model of human reasoning (PROBE model), the exact neural mechanisms of the vmPFC-dmPFC track were shown, revealing that predictive coding mechanism is used for the reward prediction. However, both the causal role and the neural mechanisms for the second track involving the frontopolar cortex in processing and storing information about alternative strategies and efficacy of their retrieval remain poorly understood. We have conducted a transcranial direct current stimulation study to test the causal role of the frontopolar cortex. Although the stimulation did not significantly affect the total number of correct answers, the medium learning effect was found for the second day (t(41) = −3.31, p = 0.002; Cohen's d = −0.55).