Clinical and neurophysiological studies have shown that a neural representation of subjective values exists in certain brain areas, most notably in the orbitofrontal corteX (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal corteX (vaFC) [3, 45].

However, these approaches do not incorporate the idea of dynamically integrating value information from disparate sources (with the exception of Cisek’s (2006) model [58] , which demonstrated how other regions, including prefrontal cortex , influence the competition), they do not model action selection tasks with competing effectors, and they do not model the eye/hand movement trajectories generated to acquire the choices.

This view is in accordance with evidence suggesting the convergence of subjective value in the orbitofrontal corteX (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vaFC), where the best alternative is selected (for a review in “goods-based” theory see [4]).

However, it captures many features of neuronal activity recorded from different cortical areas such as the parietal reach region (PRR), area 5, lateral intraparietal area (LIP), premotor cortex, prefrontal cortex (PFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in nonhuman primates that perform reaching and saccadic decision tasks with competing options.

Other areas that are likely to be important, such as the ventromedial prefrontal corteX (e.g., BA 25 and posterior portions of medial OFC) are subject to signal loss and distortion, and are likely to be underrepresented.

They also provide a new way of thinking about the reasons for the observed benefits of subgenual cingulate cortical stimulation for depression [84], as the subgenual cingulate and surrounding ventromedial prefrontal cortex have the densest projections to the brainstem of any cortical region [85,86].

Tem, temporal; Som, somatosensory; Mot, motor; Pmot, premotor; Occ, occipital, PFC, prefrontal corteX con-SS Fig.

Although we do not know the set of brain structures that store action values, previous studies implicated the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex in storing the outcome that is associated with an action [81,82].

In PBMW, memory units are bistable and the model is equipped with a system to gate information in prefrontal corteX via the basal ganglia.

6G, left) and the overall negative correlation between the coefficients (r = -0.81, p<10'6) indicates that units that tended to respond more strongly for increasing F1 tended to decrease their response for increasing F2 and vice versa, just as is observed in area S2, the prefrontal cortex and the medial premotor cortex of monkeys [45,51,52].