The Laminar Organization of a Decision Circuit in Orbitofrontal Cortex is Agnostic to the Variable Encoding Scheme

Abstract

Economic choices are believed to depend on the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Work in primates and rodents indicates that neurons in OFC participate in computing and comparing subjective values, suggesting that different groups of cells constitute the building blocks of a decision circuit. In a recent study (Livi et al., 2025), we examined the laminar organization of this circuit in mice. We found that different decision variables were differentially represented in layer 2/3 (L2/3) and layer 5 (L5). Furthermore, the temporal dynamics of decision signals indicated a combination of feed-forward and feed-back across layers, and pointed to L5 as the locus for winner-take-all value comparison. Importantly, these results were obtained under the constraint that each neuron encoded a single variable. Here, we tested whether our results on laminar organization depended on the categorical framework. We applied LASSO regression to identify a minimal set of variables explaining each neurons activity. Even with approximately half of all neurons representing two or more variables, the layer specificity of decision variables was preserved. In addition, Granger Causality Analysis and activity profiles reached similar conclusions as for analyses conducted under the single-variable constraint. We conclude that the decision circuit in OFC exhibits a laminar architecture, independently of whether the representation of decision variables in this area is categorical or mixed.