An alternative explanation can be extrapolated from a recent study that looked at the neural circuits involved in flexible behavioral adaptations38. This study demonstrated that the reliability of the current behavioral strategy (actor) was encoded by the pgACC/vmPFC and the reliability of alternative strategies was encoded in parallel by the dorsolateral PFC38. If the reliability of an alternative behavioral strategy becomes greater than that of the actor, then the actor will be rejected by ventrolateral PFC. Subsequently, the dACC will switch to the new behavioral strategy and acceptance of this new behavioral strategy as the actor is mediated by NAcc38. Thus, both a medial and lateral track exist related to behavioral flexibility. The medial track consists of the vmPFC, pgACC, dACC, and VS (including NAcc). This track makes inferences about the actor that, through reinforcement learning, selects and learns the actions maximizing reward38. The lateral track consists of frontopolar cortex (FPC) and middle lateral PFC (mid-LPC). This track makes inferences about alternative strategies (~2–3) retrieved from long-term memory. The FPC infers the absolute reliability of these alternative strategies from action
