Macaque brain cells assess valuable objects without looking at them

Cells in the anterior cingulate cortex processed cues in peripheral vision and helped guide both eye movements and choices.

Editorial illustration — not from the study.

Researchers presented rhesus macaques with four cues at the same time in a decision-making task. The animals were more likely to look at valuable cues in the periphery and to choose valuable options whose cues they had not fixated on.

Neurons in several brain regions encoded the value of cues when the animals looked directly at them. The anterior cingulate cortex was different: its neurons also processed the value of peripheral cues, including cues that were never fixated, while guiding information sampling and choice.

How peripheral cues guided choices

The macaques used peripheral information to guide both where they looked and what they chose. They were more likely to fixate valuable peripheral cues and more likely to choose valuable options whose cues they never directly fixated on. Neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex encoded cue value during fixation. Only the anterior cingulate cortex also showed parallel processing of peripheral cues, including cues that were never fixated.

Why unseen cues matter

The findings show that value-related decision processing is not limited to objects receiving direct visual attention. In this task, the anterior cingulate cortex carried information about unseen-by-fixation cues that helped guide both further information gathering and the final choice, offering a more complete account of how the brain uses what is noticed and what remains in the visual periphery.

Evidence and caveats

This was an animal study using rhesus macaques performing a controlled decision-making task while researchers examined the activity of neurons in several brain regions. The abstract does not report the number of animals, the number of neurons, or details of how the neural recordings were made. Because the evidence comes from macaques and one task, the findings do not by themselves establish how the same process works in humans or in other kinds of decisions.

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