Orbitofrontal cortex contributes to context-dependent timing under ambiguity.

Adaptive decision-making requires flexibly adjusting the decision process when stimulus reliability changes. Most paradigms manipulate reliability by changing stimulus properties, whereas animals often face situations in which the physical inputs are unchanged but their informativeness varies. To address this, we designed a change-detection task in which the reward-predictive reliability of auditory cues varied across blocks while the cues themselves remained unchanged. Mice adjusted their waiting time accordingly, responding later when cues were less reliable. Importantly, these adjustments reflected sensitivity to the underlying sound statistics, rather than reliance solely on reward feedback. Inactivation of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reduced this timing modulation. Modeling captured this effect as reduced context-dependent modulation of accumulation dynamics, accompanied by increased lapse-like responding. These findings suggest that OFC contributes to maintaining context-dependent timing under ambiguity and establish a tractable framework for studying flexible behavioral adjustment to changing cue statistics.