RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Neural Correlates of Instrumental Contingency Learning: Differential Effects of Action–Reward Conjunction and Disjunction JF The Journal of Neuroscience JO J. Neurosci. FD Society for Neuroscience SP 2474 OP 2480 DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3354-10.2011 VO 31 IS 7 A1 Mimi Liljeholm A1 Elizabeth Tricomi A1 John P. O'Doherty A1 Bernard W. Balleine YR 2011 UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/7/2474.abstract AB Contingency theories of goal-directed action propose that experienced disjunctions between an action and its specific consequences, as well as conjunctions between these events, contribute to encoding the action–outcome association. Although considerable behavioral research in rats and humans has provided evidence for this proposal, relatively little is known about the neural processes that contribute to the two components of the contingency calculation. Specifically, while recent findings suggest that the influence of action–outcome conjunctions on goal-directed learning is mediated by a circuit involving ventromedial prefrontal, medial orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsomedial striatum, the neural processes that mediate the influence of experienced disjunctions between these events are unknown. Here we show differential responses to probabilities of conjunctive and disjunctive reward deliveries in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the dorsomedial striatum, and the inferior frontal gyrus. Importantly, activity in the inferior parietal lobule and the left middle frontal gyrus varied with a formal integration of the two reward probabilities, ΔP, as did response rates and explicit judgments of the causal efficacy of the action.