Pavlovian conditioning is thought to involve the formation of learned associations between stimuli and values, and between stimuli and specific features of outcomes. Here, we leveraged human single neuron recordings in ventromedial prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal, hippocampus, and amygdala while patients of both sexes performed an appetitive Pavlovian conditioning task probing both stimulus–value and stimulus–stimulus associations. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex encoded predictive value along with the amygdala, and also encoded predictions about the identity of stimuli that would subsequently be presented, suggesting a role for neurons in this region in encoding predictive information beyond value. Unsigned error signals were found in dorsomedial frontal areas and hippocampus, potentially supporting learning of non-value related outcome features. Our findings implicate distinct human prefrontal and medial temporal neuronal populations in mediating predictive associations which could partially support model-based mechanisms during Pavlovian conditioning.

巴甫洛夫条件反射被认为涉及刺激与价值观之间以及刺激与结果的特定特征之间习得关联的形成。在这里，我们利用人类腹内侧前额叶、背内侧额叶、海马体和杏仁核的单个神经元记录，同时男女患者执行食欲巴甫洛夫条件反射任务，探索刺激-价值和刺激-刺激关联。腹内侧前额叶皮层与杏仁核一起编码预测值，并且还编码关于随后将呈现的刺激的身份的预测，这表明该区域的神经元在编码超出价值的预测信息中发挥着作用。在背内侧额叶区域和海马体中发现了无符号错误信号，可能支持非价值相关结果特征的学习。我们的研究结果表明，不同的人类前额叶和内侧颞叶神经元群体在调节预测关联中，这可以部分支持巴甫洛夫条件反射过程中基于模型的机制。