In Search of a Neural Mechanism for Domain-General Value Comparison in Decision Making

Decision making requires comparing the costs and benefits associated with available options. Decision costs include the expected effort to be exerted, whether cognitive or physical. Benefits, on the other hand, include the anticipated reward or positive outcome of the decision (Kurzban et al., 2013). For example, if you feel hungry during the day, you might opt for a quick snack to satisfy your hunger temporarily, or you could invest the additional effort to prepare a well-rounded meal. Despite the importance of effort-based decision making in everyday life, it remains unclear how the brain resolves the tension between maximizing reward and minimizing costs to come to a decision. Designing experiments to study decision making in the brain requires consideration of factors such as valuation comparison (i.e., the relative value of the options) and decision difficulty. Studying decision making as an effort–reward trade-off is further complicated by phenomena such as effort discounting (i.e., the devaluation of rewards as cognitive effort increases) and the subjective value of rewards (Apps et al., 2015). Considering all these factors, it is perhaps unsurprising that the neural mechanisms involved in effort-based decision making remain an area of active investigation, as well as a topic of broad interest in daily life. From a mechanistic perspective, cost–benefit decision making requires dynamic assessment of estimated effort expenditure and expected reward, both of which are subjective and can fluctuate over time. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been identified as a candidate area for encoding aspects of effort-based decision making in humans and rodents (Westbrook et al., 2019). dACC is located in the midcingulate cortex in the medial surface of the frontal lobe and is connected to regions involved in cognitive control, executive function, and decision making (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and … Correspondence should be addressed to Ahmad Samara at asamara1{at}student.ubc.ca.