Closed-loop readout of anterior insula high-gamma activity steers value-based decisions.

Abstract

The decision-making field has long attempted to understand the origins of human choice variability. A potential source of variability lies in spontaneous fluctuations of ongoing neural activity, which may influence behavior across several cognitive domains. Here, we developed a closed-loop intracranial brain-computer interface that detects transient fluctuations of broadband gamma activity (BGA, 70-150 Hz) to trigger stimulus presentations contingent on high or low neural states. Using this approach, we examined how spontaneous activity in the anterior insula influences accept/reject decisions involving multi-attribute offers combining pleasant and unpleasant components. Offers preceded by high BGA in the anterior insula were associated with a transient post-offer suppression in anterior insula activity, which biased decisions toward accepting an unpleasant item in exchange for a pleasant one in hypothetical multi-attribute choices. These findings demonstrate that sub-second endogenous neural fluctuations directly modulate choice behavior, challenging current neuro-computational models by emphasizing the critical role of intrinsic brain states in shaping decision variability.