Decision-making in a risk-taking task: A PET study

As decision-making is central to motivated behavior, understanding its neural substrates car? help elucidate the deficits that characterize various maladaptive behaviors. Twenty healthy adults performed a risk-taking task during positron emission tomography with O-15-labeled water. The task, a computerized card game, tests the ability to weigh short-term rewards against long-terra losses. A control task matched cell components of the risk-taking task except for decision-making and the difference between responses to contingent and non-contingent reward and punishment. Decision-making (2 runs of file active task minus 2 runs of the control task) activated orbital clad dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, insula, inferior parietal cortex and thalamus predominantly on the right side, and cerebellum predominantly on the left silo. In an exploratory analysis, guessing (run 1 minus run 2 of the active task) accompanied activation of sensory-motor associative areas, and amygdala on the left side, whereas informed decision-making (curt 2 minus run 1) activated areas that subserve memory (hippocampus, posterior cingulate) and motor control (striatum, cerebellum). The findings provide a framework for future investigations of decision-making in maladaptive behaviors. (C) 2002 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Published by Elsevier Science Inc.