Prioritising the relevant information for learning and decision making within orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortex

- Adaptive decision making requires appropriate information to be selected and used.
- Regions implicated in value-guided decision making play an active role in this process.
- Orbitofrontal cortex generates rich sensory predictions from the environment that can facilitate credit assignment by enhancing task relevant associations.
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is required to ensure irrelevant alternatives do not impinge on the decision process.

Our environment and internal states are frequently complex, ambiguous and dynamic, meaning we need to have selection mechanisms to ensure we are basing our decisions on currently relevant information. Here, we review evidence that orbitofrontal (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) play conserved, critical but distinct roles in this process. While OFC may use specific sensory associations to enhance task-relevant information, particularly in the context of learning, VMPFC plays a role in ensuring irrelevant information does not impinge on the decision in hand.