SynthesisCognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience2015
Reinforcement learning models and their neural correlates: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Not All Stroop-Type Tasks Are Alike: Assessing the Impact of Stimulus Material, Task Design, and Cognitive Demand via Meta-analyses Across Neuroimaging Studies.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Learning under social versus nonsocial uncertainty: A meta-analytic approach.Human brain mapping · 2022Pooled it
- Meta-analytic clustering dissociates brain activity and behavior profiles across reward processing paradigms.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of reward processing in major depressive disorder reveals distinct abnormalities within the reward circuit.Translational psychiatry · 2019Pooled it
- Neuroimaging Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution in Human Drug Addiction: A Systematic Review.Neuron · 2018Pooled it
- Influence of task instructions and stimuli on the neural network of face processing: An ALE meta-analysis.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2018Pooled it
- Investigating the effect of increased dopamine signaling on cerebral blood flow in Major Depressive Disorder: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Redefining bilingualism as a spectrum of experiences that differentially affects brain structure and function.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Trial
- Dopaminergic Enhancement of Striatal Response to Reward in Major Depression.The American journal of psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Deep brain reconditioning stimulation suppresses tinnitus in a rat model.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Functional bipartition of medial prefrontal cortex into salience detection and movement gain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Exploring Brain Network Dynamics in Suicide Attempt Survivors Using EEG Microstate Analysis.Brain topography · 2025Article
- Sex/gender differences in orbitofrontal cortex reactivity underlying the associations between stress, social relationships, and problematic alcohol use.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Neurocomputational basis of learning when choices simultaneously affect both oneself and others.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Noninvasive ventromedial prefrontal cortex stimulation can enhance and impair affective learning from rewarding and threatening stimuli.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Interpretation of individual differences in computational neuroscience using a latent input approach.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- Enhanced conditioning and disrupted extinction processes in men struggling with compulsive sexual behaviors.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- Article
- Mechanisms of brain self-regulation: psychological factors, mechanistic models and neural substrates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Assessing social anhedonia in a transdiagnostic sample: Insights from a computational psychiatry lens.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2024Article
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Reinforcement learning describes motivated behavior in terms of two abstract signals. The representation of discrepancies between expected and actual rewards/punishments-prediction error-is thought to update the expected value of actions and predictive stimuli. Electrophysiological and lesion studies have suggested that mesostriatal prediction error signals control behavior through synaptic modification of cortico-striato-thalamic networks. Signals in the ventromedial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex are implicated in representing expected value. To obtain unbiased maps of these representations in the human brain, we performed a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that had employed algorithmic reinforcement learning models across a variety of experimental paradigms. We found that the ventral striatum (medial and lateral) and midbrain/thalamus represented reward prediction errors, consistent with animal studies. Prediction error signals were also seen in the frontal operculum/insula, particularly for social rewards. In Pavlovian studies, striatal prediction error signals extended into the amygdala, whereas instrumental tasks engaged the caudate. Prediction error maps were sensitive to the model-fitting procedure (fixed or individually estimated) and to the extent of spatial smoothing. A correlate of expected value was found in a posterior region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, caudal and medial to the orbitofrontal regions identified in animal studies. These findings highlight a reproducible motif of reinforcement learning in the cortico-striatal loops and identify methodological dimensions that may influence the reproducibility of activation patterns across studies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.