Reliance on Episodic vs. Procedural Systems in Decision-Making Depends on Individual Differences in Their Relative Neural Efficiency

Experiential decision-making can be explained as a result of either memory-based or reinforcement-based processes. Here, for the first time, we show that individual preferences between a memory-based and a reinforcement-based strategy, even when the two are functionally equivalent in terms of expected payoff, are adaptively shaped by individual differences in resting-state brain connectivity between the corresponding brain regions. Using computational cognitive models to identify which mechanism was most likely used by each participant, we found that individuals with comparatively stronger connectivity between memory regions prefer a memory-based strategy, while individuals with comparatively stronger connectivity between sensorimotor and habit-formation regions preferentially rely on a reinforcement-based strategy. These results suggest that human decision-making is adaptive and sensitive to the neural costs associated with different strategies.