Learning-Induced Plasticity in Medial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Preference Malleability

Summary

Learning induces plasticity in neuronal networks. As neuronal populations contribute to multiple representations, we reasoned plasticity in one representation might influence others. We used human fMRI repetition suppression to show that plasticity induced by learning another individual’s values impacts upon a value representation for oneself in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a plasticity also evident behaviorally in a preference shift. We show this plasticity is driven by a striatal “prediction error,” signaling the discrepancy between the other’s choice and a subject’s own preferences. Thus, our data highlight that mPFC encodes agent-independent representations of subjective value, such that prediction errors simultaneously update multiple agents’ value representations. As the resulting change in representational similarity predicts interindividual differences in the malleability of subjective preferences, our findings shed mechanistic light on complex human processes such as the powerful influence of social interaction on beliefs and preferences.

Highlights

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  Learning the values of another causes plasticity in a mPFC value representation

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  This plasticity predicts how much subjects’ own preferences change

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  Plasticity is explained by a striatal surprise signal

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  Value coding in mPFC occurs independently of the agent for whom a decision is made

Abstract

Garvert et al. demonstrate that learning the preferences of another person increases the similarity between neural value representations for self and other. This plasticity in medial prefrontal cortex predicts how much one’s own preferences shift toward those of the other.