Processing in Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex Is Required to Estimate Subjective Preference during Initial, but Not Established, Economic Choice

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is proposed to be critical to economic decision making. Yet one can inactivate OFC without affecting well-practiced choices. One possible explanation of this lack of effect is that well-practiced decisions are codified into habits or configural-based policies not normally thought to require OFC. Here, we tested this idea by training rats to choose between different pellet pairs across a set of standard offers and then inactivating OFC subregions during choices between novel offers of previously experienced pairs or between novel pairs of previously experienced pellets. Contrary to expectations, controls performed as well on novel as experienced offers yet had difficulty initially estimating their subjective preference on novel pairs, difficulty exacerbated by lateral OFC inactivation. This pattern of results indicates that established economic choice reflects the use of an underlying model or goods space and that lateral OFC is only required for normal behavior when the established framework must incorporate new information.