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Unpredictable primates and prefrontal cortex

In many competitive games, players need to behave unpredictably so that their opponents cannot anticipate the next move. New recordings from monkeys playing a computer game support the idea that neurons in the prefrontal cortex may control this behavior and imply there is a cost for generating random behavior, which monkeys avoid unless the opponent is sophisticated.

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Figure 1: Experimental design.

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Platt, M. Unpredictable primates and prefrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 7, 319–320 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0404-319

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