Adaptive learning under expected and unexpected uncertainty

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Abstract

Decision outcomes are often uncertain and can frequently change over time. Thus, not every outcome should substantially affect behavior or learning. Successful learning and decision making require a distinction between the range of typically experienced outcomes (expected uncertainty) and variability reflecting real changes in the environment (unexpected uncertainty). Here, we posit that understanding the interaction between these two types of uncertainty, at both computational and neural levels, is crucial for understanding adaptive learning. We re-examine computational models and experimental findings to help reveal computational principles and neural mechanisms used in mammalian brains to achieve adaptive learning under uncertainty.

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Controversy surrounds the function of the anterior cingulate cortex. Recent discussions about its role in behavioural control have centred on three main issues: its involvement in motor control, its proposed role in cognition and its relationship with the arousal/drive state of the organism. I argue that the overlap of these three domains is key to distinguishing the anterior cingulate cortex from other frontal regions, placing it in a unique position to translate intentions to actions.

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The neural basis of reversal learning: An updated perspective.

Alicia Izquierdo, Jonathan L. Brigman, Anna K Radke … (2017)

Reversal learning paradigms are among the most widely used tests of cognitive flexibility and have been used as assays, across species, for altered cognitive processes in a host of neuropsychiatric conditions. Based on recent studies in humans, non-human primates, and rodents, the notion that reversal learning tasks primarily measure response inhibition, has been revised. In this review, we describe how cognitive flexibility is measured by reversal learning and discuss new definitions of the construct validity of the task that are serving as a heuristic to guide future research in this field. We also provide an update on the available evidence implicating certain cortical and subcortical brain regions in the mediation of reversal learning, and an overview of the principal neurotransmitter systems involved.