# Frontostriatal Dynamics During Decision-Making

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2024 · $678,430

## Abstract

Many neuropsychiatric disorders involve compulsive behavior, including obsessive-compulsive behavior,
obesity, eating disorders, alcoholism, and addiction. Compulsive behavior appears to arise from impaired top-
down control of striatal learning mechanisms, particularly involving circuits between the orbitofrontal cortex
(OFC) and the caudate nucleus (CN). Theories of decision-making have emphasized a complex relationship
between fast, automatic, habitual processes and slower, deliberative, goal-directed choices. These distinct
processes are thought to map on to distinct frontostriatal circuits with automatic processes and goal-directed
choices linked to different striatal regions. Theoretical accounts of OFC control have argued that it is
responsible for providing state information to CN, ensuring that the valuation of reward outcomes is
contextually appropriate. Recent psychophysics results have shown that habitual responses are prepared
simultaneous with goal-directed responses, but are inhibited to allow the slower, goal-directed response to
occur. This raises the possibility that OFC may have a gating function, similar to that which has been posited
for more dorsolateral frontal regions, whereby it inhibits habitual responses to allow goal-directed behaviors.
In the current grant, we will test the hypothesis that OFC is responsible for inhibiting habitual responses in the
striatum when top-down control and more deliberative decision-making is required. We will use a novel
behavioral task that enables us to manipulate the amount of top-down control required for a decision using two
conflicting reward contingencies. This is manifest as an increase in the amount of time necessary to make the
decision as well as the number of saccades that the animals make to either option. In addition, we have spent
the last year developing methods to lower the new primate Neuropixels probes into deep targets within the
brain, including OFC and CN, and for managing the large amounts of data that these probes generate allowing
us to use population-level decoding to investigate the dynamics of these cognitive processes with high
temporal and single-trial resolution.
In addition, we will test a second hypothesis that OFC accomplishes striatal inhibition via coherence in the
alpha band. We have previously shown, via closed-loop microstimulation, that reward-based learning depends
on theta coherence between OFC and the hippocampus. However, recent work has emphasized the role of the
alpha band in mediating inhibitory processes, both in the frontal cortex and in posterior sensory cortex. We will
use our expertise with closed-loop microstimulation to test whether OFC inhibits CN via alpha coherence
during top-down control.
Understanding the dynamics of OFC-CN interactions will lay the groundwork for building devices that can
meaningfully interact with these circuits.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11046820
- **Project number:** 1R01MH132640-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Joni D Wallis
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $678,430
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-21 → 2029-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11046820

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11046820, Frontostriatal Dynamics During Decision-Making (1R01MH132640-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11046820. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*