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Muller et al. show that some neurons in the cortex learn faster from better-than-expected outcomes compared to worse-than-expected ones; others do the converse, resulting in simultaneous optimism and pessimism, as predicted by distributional reinforcement learning.
In this study the authors show that in the mouse anterior thalamus, the activity of head-direction cells is selectively modulated by sensory stimuli and by the animal’s behavioral state.