法国国家健康与医学研究院Etienne Koechlin研究团队发现，内侧前额叶皮质神经机制破解探索-利用困境。相关论文于2020年8月28日发表在《科学》杂志上。

使用人颅内电生理学记录，研究人员发现内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）的神经活动可以推断并跟踪正在进行计划的可靠性，从而可以主动将即将发生的行动结果编码为学习信号或探索新计划的潜在触发信号。

相反，背侧mPFC表现出对行为结果的神经反应，从而导致改善或放弃正在进行的计划。因此，mPFC通过两阶段的预测编码过程解决了探索-利用困境：即将产生行动结果功能含义的主动性腹内侧阶段和指导行为以响应行动结果的被动性背内侧阶段。

据介绍，日常生活中人们通常面临在现行行动计划与可能进行调整以探索新的行动计划之间进行抉择。mPFC参与解决这个所谓的探索-利用困境。

附：英文原文

Title: Neural mechanisms resolving exploitation-exploration dilemmas in the medial prefrontal cortex

Author: Philippe Domenech, Sylvain Rheims, Etienne Koechlin

Issue&Volume: 2020/08/28

Abstract: Everyday life often requires arbitrating between pursuing an ongoing action plan by possibly adjusting it versus exploring a new action plan instead. Resolving this so-called exploitation-exploration dilemma involves the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Using human intracranial electrophysiological recordings, we discovered that neural activity in the ventral mPFC infers and tracks the reliability of the ongoing plan to proactively encode upcoming action outcomes as either learning signals or potential triggers to explore new plans. By contrast, the dorsal mPFC exhibits neural responses to action outcomes, which results in either improving or abandoning the ongoing plan. Thus, the mPFC resolves the exploitation-exploration dilemma through a two-stage, predictive coding process: a proactive ventromedial stage that constructs the functional signification of upcoming action outcomes and a reactive dorsomedial stage that guides behavior in response to action outcomes.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abb0184

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6507/eabb0184