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The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex

Decision-making is usually accompanied by metacognition, through which a decision maker monitors uncertainty regarding a decision and may then consequently revise the decision. These metacognitive processes can occur prior to or in the absence of feedback. However, the neural mechanisms of metacogni...

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Autores principales: Qiu, Lirong, Su, Jie, Ni, Yinmei, Bai, Yang, Zhang, Xuesong, Li, Xiaoli, Wan, Xiaohong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5933819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29684004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004037
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author Qiu, Lirong
Su, Jie
Ni, Yinmei
Bai, Yang
Zhang, Xuesong
Li, Xiaoli
Wan, Xiaohong
author_facet Qiu, Lirong
Su, Jie
Ni, Yinmei
Bai, Yang
Zhang, Xuesong
Li, Xiaoli
Wan, Xiaohong
author_sort Qiu, Lirong
collection PubMed
description Decision-making is usually accompanied by metacognition, through which a decision maker monitors uncertainty regarding a decision and may then consequently revise the decision. These metacognitive processes can occur prior to or in the absence of feedback. However, the neural mechanisms of metacognition remain controversial. One theory proposes an independent neural system for metacognition in the prefrontal cortex (PFC); the other, that metacognitive processes coincide and overlap with the systems used for the decision-making process per se. In this study, we devised a novel “decision–redecision” paradigm to investigate the neural metacognitive processes involved in redecision as compared to the initial decision-making process. The participants underwent a perceptual decision-making task and a rule-based decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that the anterior PFC, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and lateral frontopolar cortex (lFPC), were more extensively activated after the initial decision. The dACC activity in redecision positively scaled with decision uncertainty and correlated with individual metacognitive uncertainty monitoring abilities—commonly occurring in both tasks—indicating that the dACC was specifically involved in decision uncertainty monitoring. In contrast, the lFPC activity seen in redecision processing was scaled with decision uncertainty reduction and correlated with individual accuracy changes—positively in the rule-based decision-making task and negatively in the perceptual decision-making task. Our results show that the lFPC was specifically involved in metacognitive control of decision adjustment and was subject to different control demands of the tasks. Therefore, our findings support that a separate neural system in the PFC is essentially involved in metacognition and further, that functions of the PFC in metacognition are dissociable.
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spelling pubmed-59338192018-05-18 The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex Qiu, Lirong Su, Jie Ni, Yinmei Bai, Yang Zhang, Xuesong Li, Xiaoli Wan, Xiaohong PLoS Biol Research Article Decision-making is usually accompanied by metacognition, through which a decision maker monitors uncertainty regarding a decision and may then consequently revise the decision. These metacognitive processes can occur prior to or in the absence of feedback. However, the neural mechanisms of metacognition remain controversial. One theory proposes an independent neural system for metacognition in the prefrontal cortex (PFC); the other, that metacognitive processes coincide and overlap with the systems used for the decision-making process per se. In this study, we devised a novel “decision–redecision” paradigm to investigate the neural metacognitive processes involved in redecision as compared to the initial decision-making process. The participants underwent a perceptual decision-making task and a rule-based decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that the anterior PFC, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and lateral frontopolar cortex (lFPC), were more extensively activated after the initial decision. The dACC activity in redecision positively scaled with decision uncertainty and correlated with individual metacognitive uncertainty monitoring abilities—commonly occurring in both tasks—indicating that the dACC was specifically involved in decision uncertainty monitoring. In contrast, the lFPC activity seen in redecision processing was scaled with decision uncertainty reduction and correlated with individual accuracy changes—positively in the rule-based decision-making task and negatively in the perceptual decision-making task. Our results show that the lFPC was specifically involved in metacognitive control of decision adjustment and was subject to different control demands of the tasks. Therefore, our findings support that a separate neural system in the PFC is essentially involved in metacognition and further, that functions of the PFC in metacognition are dissociable. Public Library of Science 2018-04-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5933819/ /pubmed/29684004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004037 Text en © 2018 Qiu et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Qiu, Lirong
Su, Jie
Ni, Yinmei
Bai, Yang
Zhang, Xuesong
Li, Xiaoli
Wan, Xiaohong
The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title_full The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title_fullStr The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title_full_unstemmed The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title_short The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
title_sort neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5933819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29684004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004037
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