Integrated neural processes for defining potential actions and deciding between them: A computational model

To successfully accomplish a behavioral goal such as reaching for an object, an animal must solve two related problems: to decide which object to reach and to plan the specific parameters of the movement. Traditionally, these two problems have been viewed as separate, and theories of decision making and motor planning have been developed primarily independently. However, neural data suggests that these processes involve the same brain regions and are performed in an integrated manner. Here, a computational model is described that addresses both the question of how different potential actions are specified and how the brain decides between them. In the model, multiple potential actions are simultaneously represented as continuous regions of activity within populations of cells in frontoparietal cortex. These representations engage in a competition for overt execution that is biased by modulatory influences from prefrontal cortex. The model neural populations exhibit activity patterns that correlate with both the spatial metrics of potential actions and their associated decision variables, in a manner similar to activities in parietal, prefrontal, and premotor cortex. The model therefore suggests an explanation for neural data that have been hard to account for in terms of serial theories that propose that decision making occurs before action planning. In addition to simulating the activity of individual neurons during decision tasks, the model also reproduces key aspects of the spatial and temporal statistics of human choices and makes a number of testable predictions.