Representation of action-specific reward values in the striatum.

Samejima K, Ueda Y, Doya K, and Kimura M.

Science

310

5752

1337-1340

The estimation of the reward an action will yield is critical in decision-making. To elucidate the role of the basal ganglia in this process, we recorded striatal neurons of monkeys who chose between left and right handle turns, based on the estimated reward probabilities of the actions. During a delay period before the choices, the activity of more than one-third of striatal projection neurons was selective to the values of one of the two actions. Fewer neurons were tuned to relative values or