Journal
NEUROSCIENTIST
Volume 22, Issue 2, Pages 188-198Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/1073858414568317
Keywords
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); fMRI; functional connectivity; habit; arbitration; prefrontal cortex
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Funding
- NIMH NIH HHS [T32 MH062994] Funding Source: Medline
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Decision making in a complex world, characterized both by predictable regularities and by frequent departures from the norm, requires dynamic switching between rapid habit-like, automatic processes and slower, more flexible evaluative processes. These strategies, formalized as model-free and model-based reinforcement learning algorithms, respectively, can lead to divergent behavioral outcomes, requiring a mechanism to arbitrate between them in a context-appropriate manner. Recent data suggest that individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) rely excessively on inflexible habit-like decision making during reinforcement-driven learning. We propose that inflexible reliance on habit in OCD may reflect a functional weakness in the mechanism for context-appropriate dynamic arbitration between model-free and model-based decision making. Support for this hypothesis derives from emerging functional imaging findings. A deficit in arbitration in OCD may help reconcile evidence for excessive reliance on habit in rewarded learning tasks with an older literature suggesting inappropriate recruitment of circuitry associated with model-based decision making in unreinforced procedural learning. The hypothesized deficit and corresponding circuitry may be a particularly fruitful target for interventions, including cognitive remediation.
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