Prefrontal cortex as a meta-reinforcement learning system
Very interesting.Oversimplifying and ignoring a lot of important details, the key idea proposed by the authors is that the brain's phasic dopamine system is a model-free reinforcement-learning system that learns to train the prefrontal cortex as a more efficient model-based reinforcement-learning sytem -- a form of meta-learning which the authors accurately refer to as meta-reinforcement learning.The "Results" section provides compelling evidence that the authors might be on to something. The authors show and discuss the outcomes of six different kinds of computer experiments in which a (relatively simple) meta-reinforcement learning software system is shown to learn and behave in qualitatively similar ways as, for example, monkeys and rats in equivalent lab experiments.I'm still digesting the implications.Highly recommended reading.