my (personal) summary and then comments for this #JournalClub

any corrections, comments, additional questions are welcome, especially from the first author @jessetm

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The main goal of this paper is to test if #VTEs (Vicarious Trial-and Error) and medial prefrontal cortex LFP relate to navigation behaviour parameters such as behavioural flexibility, performance and strategy use, during allocentric* navigation.

VTEs are a behaviour that rodents and humans do at choice points, looking alternatively at the different available options before choosing one (check video below). They have been studied mostly during response-based tasks (when the subjects have to learn a body-oriented response or sequence of responses to the reward). From that research, two possible roles for VTEs have been suggested: deliberation (weighing down the available options) or uncertainty (hesitation).

The current paper aims to test which is the most likely role of these two, by having a task involving a lot of deliberation and a lot of uncertainty (protocol explained below).
The main conclusion is that these two VTE types actually exist, which means VTEs should not just be interpreted as a marker of behavioural flexibility or deliberation. There is are also some interesting findings about different LFP rhythms in the medial prefrontal cortex being stronger during different types of behaviours (explained below).
(*) (allocentric = based on an external reference frame, like the Water maze task)

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cc: @Andrewpapale, @drdrowland, feel free to add your comments /questions anywhere you want!