ArticleScience advances2021
Ultrasound modulation of macaque prefrontal cortex selectively alters credit assignment-related activity and behavior.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
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
48 citing papers in PubMed, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multi-focal ultrasound neuromodulation to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex disrupts behavioural and neural pain processing.Nature communications · 2026Trial
- Brain activity, disruption and connectivity comparisons identify origins of human metacognition in other primates.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Transcranial focused ultrasound modulates spiking, LFP, and BOLD activity in the primate thalamus.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Depression in neurodegenerative disease: neurobiological mechanisms and emerging treatments.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Identity-specific reward expectations in orbitofrontal cortex guide goal-directed choices.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in macaques guides decisions in different learning conditions.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ultrasound neuromodulation reveals distinct roles of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula in learning.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Comparing the Limbic-Frontal Connectome across the Primate Order: Conservation of Connections and Implications for Translational Neuroscience.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation enhances semantic memory by modulating brain morphology, neurochemistry and neural dynamics.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Interaction and functional specialization across a distributed neural circuit for flexible task control in macaques.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Targeting the Medial Prefrontal Cortex with Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Alleviates Adolescent Sleep-Deprivation-Induced Persistent Postsurgical Pain in Adulthood.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Transcranial ultrasound stimulation selectively enhances fronto-temporal context-guided memory.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Active disambiguation guides inferring controllability and cause in social interactions.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human nucleus accumbens impacts reward sensitivity.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Distinct contributions of anterior and posterior orbitofrontal cortex to outcome-guided behavior.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions disrupt learning to reward others.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Modulates Visual Thalamus in a Nonhuman Primate Model.IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering · 2025Article
- Non-invasive Ultrasonic Neuromodulation of the Human Nucleus Accumbens Impacts Reward Sensitivity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Dorsal raphe nucleus controls motivation-state transitions in monkeys.Science advances · 2025Article
- Chemogenetic inhibition of amygdala to ventrolateral prefrontal cortex communication selectively impacts contingent learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Credit assignment is the association of specific instances of reward to the specific events, such as a particular choice, that caused them. Without credit assignment, choice values reflect an approximate estimate of how good the environment was when the choice was made—the global reward state—rather than exactly which outcome the choice caused. Combined transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging in macaques demonstrate credit assignment–related activity in prefrontal area 47/12o, and when this signal was disrupted with TUS, choice value representations across the brain were impaired. As a consequence, behavior was no longer guided by choice value, and decision-making was poorer. By contrast, global reward state–related activity in the adjacent anterior insula remained intact and determined decision-making after prefrontal disruption.
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.