Journal
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Volume 19, Issue 5, Pages 1019-1027Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhn147
Keywords
decision making; fMRI; neuroeconomics; reward; risk
Categories
Funding
- National Institute on Drug Abuse [DA11779, DA12487, DA16708]
- National Science Foundation [HD29891, IIS 04-42586, SES 03-50984]
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Making a risky decision is a complex process that involves evaluation of both the value of the options and the associated risk level. Yet the neural processes underlying these processes have not so far been clearly identified. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task that simulates risky decisions, we found that the dorsal region of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was activated whenever a risky decision was made, but the degree of this activity across subjects was negatively correlated with their risk preference. In contrast, the ventral MPFC was parametrically modulated by the received gain/loss, and the activation in this region was positively correlated with an individual's risk preference. These results extend existing neurological evidence by showing that the dorsal and ventral MPFC convey different decision signals (i.e., aversion to uncertainty vs. approach to rewarding outcomes), where the relative strengths of these signals determine behavioral decisions involving risk and uncertainty.
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