ReviewNature reviews. Neuroscience2016
Vicarious trial and error.
Review in Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 212 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
212 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Structural and functional organization of the midline and intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- A novel rat spatial inference task reveals rapid deduction of transitive relationships using schemas and deliberation.Behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- T. rex cognition was T. rex-like-A critical outlook on diverging views of the neurocognitive evolution in dinosaurs.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Review
- Dynamic Hippocampal-Striatal Information Flow Accompanies Behavioral Strategy Transitions During Sequential Learning in Pigeons: A Preliminary Study.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Just how goal-directed are hippocampal theta sweeps, anyway?Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Cognitive maps as a medium for thought.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- A Conserved Mammalian Hippocampal Navigation Motif Reconfigured for Primate Vision.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Why do we seek information about the future? On the origins of subjective value without instrumental value.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- CortexCAM: A Camera Array Microscope for Cortex-Wide Cellular Imaging in Freely Locomoting Mice.Research square · 2026Article
- Hippocampal representations differentiate reactive and anticipatory responses during foraging under threat.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cost-effective, open-source, automated apparatus for testing transitive inference in mice.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cortex-Wide Cellular Imaging in Freely Locomoting Mice Using Cortex Camera Array Microscope (CortexCAM).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The striatal indirect pathway mediates hesitation.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural sampling from cognitive maps enables goal-directed imagination and planning.Nature machine intelligence · 2026Article
- Distinct aging-related profiles of allocentric knowledge recall following navigation in an immersive, naturalistic, city-like environment.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Female rats adopt a safety-first strategy in a high-conflict platform mediated avoidance task.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Prefrontal Default Mode Network Interactions with Posterior Hippocampus during Exploration.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Assessing attentiveness and cognitive engagement across tasks using video-based action understanding in non-human primates.Journal of neuroscience methods · 2025Article
- Learning to Move and Plan like the Knight: Sequential Decision Making with a Novel Motor Mapping.Computational brain & behavior · 2025Article
- Decoding hidden goal-directed navigational states and their neuronal representations using a novel labyrinth paradigm and probabilistic modeling framework.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
152 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
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
When rats come to a decision point, they sometimes pause and look back and forth as if deliberating over the choice; at other times, they proceed as if they have already made their decision. In the 1930s, this pause-and-look behaviour was termed 'vicarious trial and error' (VTE), with the implication that the rat was 'thinking about the future'. The discovery in 2007 that the firing of hippocampal place cells gives rise to alternating representations of each of the potential path options in a serial manner during VTE suggested a possible neural mechanism that could underlie the representations of future outcomes. More-recent experiments examining VTE in rats suggest that there are direct parallels to human processes of deliberative decision making, working memory and mental time travel.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.