Rapid Rule-Based Reward Reversal and the Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex

Humans and other primates can reverse their choice of stimuli in one trial when the rewards delivered by the stimuli change or reverse. Rapidly changing our behavior when the rewards change is important for many types of behavior, including emotional and social behavior. It is shown in a one-trial rule-based Go-NoGo deterministic visual discrimination reversal task to obtain points, that the human right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and adjoining inferior frontal gyrus is activated on reversal trials, when an expected reward is not obtained, and the non-reward allows the human to switch choices based on a rule. This reward reversal goes beyond model-free reinforcement learning. This functionality of the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex shown here in very rapid, one-trial, rule-based changes in human behavior when a reward is not received is related to the emotional and social changes that follow orbitofrontal cortex damage, and to depression in which this non-reward system is oversensitive and over-connected.