Exploring the link between anticipatory outcome encoding in the brain and goal-directed behavior during outcome devaluation

Goal-directed behavior is thought to rely critically on the anticipation of potential future outcomes of an action. In this study, we used an fMRI instrumental learning paradigm with selective outcome devaluation in a sample of 59 participants (ages 18-33) to identify regions of the brain's goal-directed system showing anticipatory neural representations of action outcomes. Using multivariate pattern analysis, we could show that an area in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex significantly encoded action outcomes in an anticipatory manner. Critically, anticipatory outcome encoding strength in a subset of voxels in this dorsolateral prefrontal cluster significantly predicted behavioral sensitivity to outcome devaluation, hence behavioral goal-directedness. This finding is important because anticipatory outcome encoding in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) has never been directly linked to behavioral goal-directedness during outcome devaluation in previous research. However, the finding presented here is preliminary and needs to be replicated systematically. In addition, future research is needed to investigate the specific role of different regions along the lateral prefrontal cortex in this context and to investigate whether the effect reported here can explain impairments in goal-directed behavior under specific conditions such as, for example, the experience of acute stress.