No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Increased Activation in the Right Insula During Risk-Taking Decision Making Is Related to Harm Avoidance and Neuroticism
Abstract
Decision making and risk taking are interrelated processes that are important for daily functioning. The somatic marker hypothesis has provided a conceptual basis for processes involved in risk-taking decision making and has been used to link discrete neural substrates to risk-related behaviors. This investigation examined the hypothesis that the degree of risk-taking is related to the degree of activation in the insular cortex. Seventeen healthy, right-handed subjects performed a risk-taking decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using a fast event-related design. This investigation yielded three main findings. First, right insula (BA 13) activation was significantly stronger when subjects selected a "risky" response versus selecting a "safe" response. Second, the degree of insula activation was related to the probability of selecting a "safe" response following a punished response. Third, the degree of insula activation was related to the subjects' degree of harm avoidance and neuroticism as measured by the TCI and NEO personality questionnaires, respectively. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that insula activation serves as a critical neural substrate to instantiate aversive somatic markers that guide risk-taking decision-making behavior.
... ACC and dopaminergic activity are not the only sign of risk preferences in reward processing. Studies have shown that harm-avoidant subjects exhibit greater activation in the right insular cortex [17] while choosing to avoid punishment during the anticipation phase of reward processing [18,19]. According to the somatic marker hypothesis [20], aversive stimuli are associated with somatic markers, leading to stronger activation of the insula [21]. ...
... According to the somatic marker hypothesis [20], aversive stimuli are associated with somatic markers, leading to stronger activation of the insula [21]. This relatively strong activation indicates the possibility of aversive feedback and prompts the subject to avoid risky options [17]. Consistent with this view, some studies showed that decreased insula activity was correlated with craving for alcohol [22] and pathological gambling [19]. ...
... In contrast, risk-seekers demonstrated a diminished response to the safe option. This result confirmed our prediction and concurred with the findings of previous studies [17,45]. Zheng and Liu [45] observed that individuals with an elevated level of sensation-seeking have a blunted SPN compared to those with a low level of sensation-seeking. ...
Inter-individual variability in risk preferences can be reflected in reward processing differences, making people risk-seekers or risk-averse. However, the neural correlates of reward processing in individuals with risk preferences remain unknown. Consequently, this event-related potential (ERP) study examined and compared electrophysiological correlates associated with different stages of reward processing in risk-seeking and risk-averse groups. Individuals scoring in the bottom and top 20% on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) were deemed risk-averse and risk-seeking, respectively. Participants engaged in a gambling task while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Risk-seekers tended to choose high-risk options significantly more frequently than low-risk options, whereas risk-averse individuals chose low-risk options significantly more frequently than high-risk ones. All participants selected the low-risk alternative more slowly than the high-risk option. During the anticipation stage, the low-risk option elicited a relatively attenuated stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) response from risk-seekers compared to risk-averse participants. During the outcome stage, feedback-related negativity (FRN) increased in risk-seekers responding to greater losses but not in risk-averse participants. These results indicate that ERP components can detect differences in reward processing during risky situations. In addition, these results suggest that motivation and cognitive control, along with their associated neural processes, may play a central role in differences in reward-based behavior between the two groups.
... This dual account of excitement reveals that risk-taking towards 50-50 purchase amount is predicted by an excitement-as-anticipation effect when the game is not in play (i.e., during pregame and intermission), but is predicted by an excitement-as-experience effect during gameplay. Although these constructs (i.e., excitement-as-anticipation and excitement-as-experience) are original to this research, they were created based on prior literature as being representative of the nature of excitement (Knutson et al., 2005;Paulus et al., 2003;Raghunathan & Pham, 1999;. ...
... Waiting for highly anticipated experiences can increase arousal through activating the behavioural activation response system, which can lead to disinhibition, impulsivity, and an inclination towards risk-taking Knutson et al., 2005;Langewisch & Frisch, 1998;Paulus et al., 2003;To et al., 2018). As such, we predict that before a contest and during intermissions between rival teams (vs. ...
... The actual taking of precautionary measures represents a harm avoidance decision-making process used to defeat dangers and eliminate risks (Kim et al., 2008). While several studies have explored risk perceptions and decisionmaking and found evidence supportive of a link between these concepts (Powell & Ansic, 1997;Paulus, Rogalsky, Simmons, Feinstein, & Stein, 2003;Slovic et al., 2005), this line of research has yet to be applied to the correctional environment. ...
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
... Alongside theories and models that aim to explain the decisionmaking process, the other key debate revolves around how individuals' brains react to risky decisions. Paulus et al. (2003) discovered a connection between the level of risk-taking and the activation in the insular cortex. Their findings further supported the idea that insula activation plays a crucial role in generating aversive somatic markers, which guide risk-related decisionmaking. ...
The aim of this study is to provide a systematic and bibliometric overview of neuroeconomics and neurofinance research. The study analyzes 507 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the Web of Science (WoS) database spanning from 1994 to February 2024. The research is conducted in two phases; initially, a performance analysis, followed by a science mapping analysis. Through performance analysis, we pinpoint significant authors, notable journals, leading countries, and influential articles within these research fields. With the science mapping, we utilize co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analyses to uncover the thematic and intellectual framework of research in neuroeconomics and neurofinance. Overall, we reveal prominent research themes, including reward, decision-making under risk, value, game theory, and intertemporal choices. Classical decision-making theory divides the decision-making process into three interconnected stages: identifying options, evaluating them, and making a choice. The research themes we revealed through science mapping analysis constitute different aspects of the evaluation stage. Accordingly, our results suggest that neuroeconomics and neurofinance research has mainly concentrated on the evaluation stage (and, to a lesser extent, the choice stage with value theme), while the process of identifying options has been relatively understudied, despite its vital significance in less structured, real-world situations. Alongside revealing research themes, we ultimately spotlight research directions within neuroeconomics and neurofinance.
... The association test shows a specific brain area associated with the insula (red marks) based on an automated meta-analysis of 2.017 studies using NeuroSynth. The insula forms perceptions of fairness, ultimately influencing decisions based on the interlocutor's personal assessments (Kim et al., 2012) that guide risk-taking decision-making (Paulus et al., 2003) requires a comprehensive understanding of the community's spiritual needs and the ability to harmonise traditional practices with religious doctrines. Therefore, religious leaders who guide communities in moral and spiritual matters are likely to show greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) (Figure 3) when contemplating moral principles and the social implications of their decisions (Han et al., 2016). ...
... Broadly, these results have important implications for circumstances associated with suboptimal risky decision-making, such as during neurodevelopment in adolescents [41,42] or in individuals with neurological and psychiatric disorders characterized by altered decision-making [43][44][45][46]. This disrupted utility-based risk processing may in-turn play a role in the particularly prominent influence of social others in adolescent decision-making [47,48] and also in the onset and maintenance of substance misuse and related psychopathology [49,50]. ...
When making risky choices in social contexts, humans typically combine social information with individual preferences about the options at stake. It remains unknown how such decisions are made when these preferences are inaccessible or disrupted, as might be the case for individuals confronting novel options or experiencing cognitive impairment. Thus, we examined participants with lesions in insular or dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, key regions implicated in risky decision-making, as they played a gambling task where choices were made both alone and after observing others’ choices. Participants in both lesion groups showed disrupted use of standard utility-based computations about risky options. For socially situated decisions, these participants showed increased conformity with the choices of others, independent from social utility-based computations. These findings suggest that in social contexts, following others’ choices may be a heuristic for decision-making when utility-based risk processing is disrupted.
... The AI and dACC are the main components of the salience network and are widely reported to be closely related to risk decision-making (Singer et al. 2009;Markett et al. 2016). Converging evidence suggests that the insula is essential to value estimation (Weller et al. 2009), is more activated under risky than safe choices (Paulus et al. 2003), and is associated with emotional arousal (Yaguez et al. 2005;Zaki et al. 2012). Thus, activation of the AI while making decisions in social contexts suggests that individuals with higher loss aversion may be more uncomfortable with the social inf luence from the direction of risky options. ...
The impact of others' choices on decision-making is influenced by individual preferences. However, the specific roles of individual preferences in social decision-making remain unclear. In this study, we examine the contributions of risk and loss preferences as well as social influence in decision-making under uncertainty using a gambling task. Our findings indicate that while both individual preferences and social influence affect decision-making in social contexts, loss aversion plays a dominant role, especially in individuals with high loss aversion. This phenomenon is accompanied by increased functional connectivity between the anterior insular cortex and the temporoparietal junction. These results highlight the critical involvement of loss aversion and the anterior insular cortex–temporoparietal junction neural pathway in social decision-making under uncertainty. Our findings provide a computational account of how individual preferences and social information collectively shape our social decision-making behaviors.
... Other neuroimaging evidence has linked emotion regulation function in this region to HA. HA correlates with insula receptor availability for μ-opioid, a neurotransmitter involved in the affective component of pain and interoception [42]; in responding to punishment and making risk-taking decisions [50], individuals with high HA and greater insula activation tend to choose nonpunished outcomes, in line with the "somatic marker" hypothesis, that emotions influence the decision-making process through physiological mechanisms in the insula [51,52]. It is tempting to relate that to our finding of HA-related GMV changes in right STG to insula. ...
Harm avoidance (HA) is a Cloninger personality trait that describes behavioural inhibition to avoid aversive stimuli. It serves as a predisposing factor that contributes to the development of mental disorders such as anxiety and major depressive disorder. Neuroimaging research has identified some brain anatomical and functional correlates of HA, but reported findings are inconsistent. We therefore conducted a multimodal meta-analysis of whole-brain structural and resting-state functional neuroimaging studies to identify the most stable neural substrate of HA. Included were a total of 10 structural voxel-based morphometry studies (11 datasets) and 13 functional positron emission tomography or single photon emission computed tomography studies (16 datasets) involving 3053 healthy participants without any psychiatric or neurological disorders evaluated for HA using the Three-Dimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) or the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The meta-analysis revealed brain volumetric correlates of HA in parietal and temporal cortices, and resting-state functional correlates in prefrontal, temporal and parietal gray matter. Volumetric and functional correlates co-occurred in the left superior frontal gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus, and were dissociated in the left rectus gyrus. Our meta-analysis is the first study to give a comprehensive picture of the structural and functional correlates of HA, a contribution that may help bridge the grievous gap between the neurobiology of HA and the pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of HA-related mental disorders.
... For instance, using a monetary incentive delay task, it was found that insular response to punishment predicted participants' ability to learn to avoid subsequent losses [30]. In another study, the right insula's activity following punishment was associated with higher probability of choosing safe responses in future trials [100]. These reports are also in support of our path model finding that the weakening of the insula activation was associated with worse proactive avoidance learning rate. ...
Physical pain and negative emotions represent two distinct drinking motives that contribute to harmful alcohol use. Proactive avoidance, in contrast, can reduce consumption in response to these motives but appears to be impaired in those with problem drinking. Despite such evidence, proactive avoidance and its underlying neural deficits have not been assessed experimentally. How these deficits inter-relate with drinking motives to influence alcohol use also remains unclear. The current study leveraged neuroimaging data in forty-one problem and forty-one social drinkers who performed a probabilistic learning go/nogo task featuring proactive avoidance of painful outcomes. We identified the brain responses to proactive avoidance and contrasted the neural correlates of drinking to avoid negative emotions vs. physical pain. Behavioral results confirmed proactive avoidance deficits in problem drinking individuals’ learning rate and performance accuracy, both which were associated with greater alcohol use. Imaging findings in the problem drinking group showed that negative emotions as a drinking motive predicted attenuated right anterior insula activation during proactive avoidance. In contrast, physical pain motive predicted reduced right putamen response. These regions’ activations as well as functional connectivity with the somatomotor cortex also demonstrated a negative relationship with drinking severity and positive relationship with proactive avoidance performance. Path modeling further delineated the pathways through which physical pain and negative emotions influenced the neural and behavioral measures of proactive avoidance. Taken together, the current findings provide experimental evidence for proactive avoidance deficits in alcohol misuse and establish the link between their neural underpinnings and drinking behavior.
... Inherently, various social deficits and associated mental disorders are linked to impaired switching between task-related and resting-state networks. The SN-mediated switch, involving the anterior insula (AI) and dorsolateral ACC (dlACC), shows overactivity in affective disorders and neuroticism (Massullo et al., 2020;Paulus et al., 2003;Paulus and Stein, 2006;Stein et al., 2007). Low AI involvement is related to depersonalisation and emotional detachment in post-traumatic stress disorder patients (Fenster et al., 2018), and left-right insula hypoconnectivity correlates to symptoms of negative bias, anhedonia and threat dysregulation in patients suffering from mood and anxiety disorders (Goldstein-Piekarski et al., 2022), while clinical phenotypes in mood and anxiety disorders were not associated with circuit or regional connectivity changes within the FPN (Goldstein-Piekarski et al., 2022). ...
Our intricate social brain is implicated in a range of brain disorders, where social dysfunction emerges as a common neuropsychiatric feature cutting across diagnostic boundaries. Understanding the neurocircuitry underlying social dysfunction and exploring avenues for its restoration could present a transformative and transdiagnostic approach to overcoming therapeutic challenges in these disorders. The brain's default mode network (DMN) plays a crucial role in social functioning and is implicated in various neuropsychiatric conditions. By thoroughly examining the current understanding of DMN functionality, we propose that the DMN integrates diverse social processes, and disruptions in brain communication at regional and network levels due to disease hinder the seamless integration of these social functionalities. Consequently, this leads to an altered balance between self-referential and attentional processes, alongside a compromised ability to adapt to social contexts and anticipate future social interactions. Looking ahead, we explore how adopting an integrated neurocircuitry perspective on social dysfunction could pave the way for innovative therapeutic approaches to address brain disorders.
... Individual risk-taking strategies and/or personality factors might modulate risk preferences (Oba et al., 2021) and thus brain activity and connectivity patterns. For instance, harm avoidance or neuroticism was related to insula activation during risky decisions (Paulus et al., 2003). This issue should be addressed in future studies with larger, diverse samples. ...
Understanding the subprocesses of risky decision making is a prerequisite for understanding (dys‐)functional decisions. For the present fMRI study, we designed a novel variant of the balloon‐analog‐risk task (BART) that measures three phases: decision making, reward anticipation, and feedback processing. Twenty‐nine healthy young adults completed the BART. We analyzed neural activity and functional connectivity. Parametric modulation allowed assessing changes in brain functioning depending on the riskiness of the decision. Our results confirm involvement of nucleus accumbens, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in all subprocesses of risky decision‐making. In addition, subprocesses were differentiated by the strength of activation in these regions, as well as by changes in activity and nucleus accumbens‐connectivity by the riskiness of the decision. The presented fMRI‐BART variant allows distinguishing activity and connectivity during the subprocesses of risky decision making and shows how activation and connectivity patterns relate to the riskiness of the decision. Hence, it is a useful tool for unraveling impairments in subprocesses of risky decision making in people with high risk behavior.
... The opposite contrast (defection > cooperation) is expected to activate more SFG, mPFC, and PCC regions (Fukui et al., 2006). Risky over non-risky decision is expected to be related to activation in dorsal ACC, superior and middle frontal gyri, striatum, thalamus, precuneus, and anterior insula (Paulus et al., 2003;Roy et al., 2011). We explored cooperation versus defection decision patterns in the different phases, expecting them to be associated with different neural activation patterns depending on the phase (e.g., higher activation in ACC and anterior insula (Krain et al., 2006;Mohr et al., 2010;Morriss et al., 2019;Wu et al., 2021) in defection (continuing), potentially due to greater uncertainty, compared with cooperation (turning) in the dynamic phase). ...
In traditional game theory tasks, social decision‐making is centered on the prediction of the intentions (i.e., mentalizing) of strangers or manipulated responses. In contrast, real‐life scenarios often involve familiar individuals in dynamic environments. Further research is needed to explore neural correlates of social decision‐making with changes in the available information and environmental settings. This study collected fMRI hyperscanning data (N = 100, 46 same‐sex pairs were analyzed) to investigate sibling pairs engaging in an iterated Chicken Game task within a competitive context, including two decision‐making phases. In the static phase, participants chose between turning (cooperate) and continuing (defect) in a fixed time window. Participants could estimate the probability of different events based on their priors (previous outcomes and representation of other's intentions) and report their decision plan. The dynamic phase mirrored real‐world interactions in which information is continuously changing (replicated within a virtual environment). Individuals had to simultaneously update their beliefs, monitor the actions of the other, and adjust their decisions. Our findings revealed substantial choice consistency between the two phases and evidence for shared neural correlates in mentalizing‐related brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and precuneus. Specific neural correlates were associated with each phase; increased activation of areas associated with action planning and outcome evaluation were found in the static compared with the dynamic phase. Using the opposite contrast, dynamic decision‐making showed higher activation in regions related to predicting and monitoring other's actions, including the anterior cingulate cortex and insula. Cooperation (turning), compared with defection (continuing), showed increased activation in mentalizing‐related regions only in the static phase, while defection, relative to cooperation, exhibited higher activation in areas associated with conflict monitoring and risk processing in the dynamic phase. Men were less cooperative and had greater TPJ activation. Sibling competitive relationship did not predict competitive behavior but showed a tendency to predict brain activity during dynamic decision‐making. Only individual brain activation results are included here, and no interbrain analyses are reported. These neural correlates emphasize the significance of considering varying levels of information available and environmental settings when delving into the intricacies of mentalizing during social decision‐making among familiar individuals.
... Additionally, it has been found that different aggressive decisions under various reward expectancies are closely linked to activation in the insula. The degree of insula activation is associated with the level of risk-taking (Han et al., 2024;Paulus et al., 2003). For instance, a recent study recruited 23 healthy and 23 obese, right-handed female participants to complete the Risky Gains Task during a fMRI scan. ...
Proactive aggression refers to deliberate and unprovoked behavior, typically motivated by personal gain or expected reward. Reward expectancy is generally recognized as a critical factor that may influence proactive aggression, but its neural mechanisms remain unknown. We conducted a task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to investigate the relationship between reward expectancy and proactive aggression. 37 participants (20 females, mean age = 20.8 ± 1.42, age range = 18–23 years) completed a reward-harm task. In the experiment, reward valence expectancy and reward possibility expectancy were manipulated respectively by varying amounts (low: 0.5–1.5 yuan; high: 10.5–11.5 yuan) and possibilities (low: 10%–30%; high: 70%–90%) of money that participants could obtain by choosing to aggress. Participants received fMRI scans throughout the experiment. Brain activation regions associated with reward expectancy mainly involve the middle frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, anterior cuneus, caudate nucleus, inferior frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, anterior central gyrus, and posterior central gyrus. Associations between brain activation and reward expectancy in the left insula, left middle frontal gyrus, left thalamus, and right middle frontal gyrus were found to be related to proactive aggression. Furthermore, the brain activation regions primarily involved in proactive aggression induced by reward expectancy were the insula, inferior frontal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, pallidum, and caudate nucleus. Under conditions of high reward expectancy, participants engage in more proactive aggressive behavior. Reward expectancy involves the activation of reward- and social-cognition-related brain regions, and these associations are instrumental in proactive aggressive decisions.
... Knutson et al.'s (2007) fMRI study first found that excessive product prices activated the insula prior to the purchase decision. Since the insula has been shown to be associated with expected pain (Wager et al., 2013) and negative arousal (Büchel, 2000;Paulus et al., 2003), this study shows that paying too much money can lead to direct negative experiences. Further, Mazar et al. (2016) robustly revealed that "pain of paying" is a high-order emotional pain characterized by the activation of the anterior insula and reported a positive correlation between price magnitude and activity signals in the anterior insula. ...
The past years have witnessed a phenomenal growth of the mobile payment market, but how mobile payment affects purchase behavior receives less attention from academics. Recent studies suggested that lower pain of paying may not fully clarify the relationship between mobile payment and increased purchases (i.e., mobile payment effect). The current research first introduced price level in Study 1 and demonstrated that the pain of paying served as an underlying mechanism only in the high‐price condition rather than the low‐price condition. As such, Study 2 was conducted in a low‐price context to address the uncovered mechanisms. We propose a new concept of “pleasure of payment” that is defined as an implicit and consumption‐related hedonic response based on the cue theory of consumption. By tracking spontaneous attention to positive attributes (i.e., benefits) of products, Study 2 demonstrated this implicit pleasure as a psychological mechanism for the mobile payment effect when the pain of paying was not at play. These findings have important implications for mobile payment in research and practice by identifying price level as a boundary condition for the role of pain of paying and understanding the positive downstream consequences of mobile payment usage on consumer psychology.
... It was projected that high extraversion and openness scores would predict overall risk taking, while low neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness scores would not. Paulus (2003) conducted research, and the study discovered that right anterior insula activation is greater during dangerous responses, influences the likelihood of selecting a safe answer, and is positively connected with harm avoidance and neuroticism. The Temperament and Character assessment (TCI) and the NEO personality assessment were utilized to assess the external validity of this technique. ...
The purpose of this study was to explore the role neuroticism and perceived stress in predicting risk taking behaviors. The research was designed to get an understanding that how neurotic personality trait effect the decision making or risk-taking behaviors of individual and how perceived stress plays a role in taking decisions of neurotic personality. Neurotic people have more frequent and severe negative feelings, such as worry and mood swings. Low neuroticism suggests emotional stability and a relaxed disposition. These constructs' interactions can be bidirectional. Individuals with high neuroticism, for example, may engage in risk-taking behaviors as a maladaptive strategy to cope with perceived stress. Risky actions, on the other hand, may intensify perceived stress in these persons due to potential negative repercussions. The data were collected from a sample of N=250 both males and females from the adults. The scale used to measure the variables are, the perceives stress scale (PSS) was used for the purpose of measuring the stress, Big five inventory (BFI) was used to measure the neuroticism and the adolescent risk-taking questionnaire (ARTQ) was used for the purpose of measuring risk taking behaviors. Results of the analysis indicated that study variables are significantly related with each other. Neuroticism has significantly positive related with perceived stress and risk-taking behaviors, and risk-taking behaviors significantly positively related to perceived stress. Also, there are significant gender difference in neuroticism as female scores high in neuroticism than males. Mediation analysis revealed that there is no mediation effect of perceived stress over neuroticism and risk-taking behavior.
... Our finding that weaker rsFC between the bilateral insula and the ACC predicted greater NERS is consistent with the literature showing that this connection (within the salience network) is heavily involved in processing emotion and emotional salience detection. 40 The finding that greater NERS is predicted by weaker rsFC in the SN suggests nicotine's cognitive enhancing effects may be in part due to rsFC enhancement of the SN or its hubs either by enhancing risk aversion (SN 41 ; insula 42,43 ) and/or improving the detection and filtering of rewarding cues. 44,45 NERS was also predicted by greater rsFC between the ACC and PCC, regions that, in combination with the precuneus, constitute hubs of the default mode network, 46 and may be involved with ACC-based switching from internal DMN attentional focus to external salient (reward-related) stimuli. ...
Introduction
The neural underpinnings underlying individual differences in nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity and smoking progression are poorly understood. Thus, we investigated whether brain resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) during smoking abstinence predicts nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity and smoking progression in young light smokers. We hypothesized that high rsFC between brain areas with high densities of nicotinic receptors (insula, anterior cingulate cortex [ACC], hippocampus, thalamus) and areas involved in reward-seeking (nucleus accumbens [NAcc], prefrontal cortex [PFC]) would predict nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity and smoking progression.
Methods
Young light smokers (N=64, age 18-24, M = 1.89 cigarettes/day) participated in the study. These individuals smoked between 5 to 35 cigarettes per week and lifetime use never exceeded 35 cigarettes per week. Their rsFC was assessed using functional magnetic resonance imaging after 14-hour nicotine-deprivation. Subjects also completed a probabilistic reward task after smoking a placebo on one day and a regular cigarette on another day.
Results
The probabilistic-reward-task assessed greater nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity was associated with greater rsFC between the right anterior PFC and right NAcc, but with reduced rsFC between the ACC and left inferior prefrontal gyrus and the insula and ACC. Decreased rsFC within the salience network (ACC and insula) predicted increased smoking progression across 18 months and greater nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity.
Conclusions
These findings provide the first evidence that differences in rsFCs in young light smokers are associated with nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity and smoking progression.
Implications
Weaker rsFC within the salience network predicted greater nicotine-enhanced reward sensitivity and smoking progression. These findings suggest that salience network rsFC and drug-enhanced reward sensitivity may be useful tools and potential endophenotypes for reward sensitivity and drug-dependence research.
... We also found that AIns activity is not predictive of future stock performance. AIns activity has been associated with negative or generally aroused affect, as well as avoidance behavior (33,34), and may serve as a warning signal in financial trading (22). Indeed, Stallen et al. (23) found that AIns activity was related to stock price inflections in the next period, thus reflecting changing demand for stocks and associated price decreases. ...
A major aspiration of investors is to better forecast stock performance. Interestingly, emerging “neuroforecasting” research suggests that brain activity associated with anticipatory reward relates to market behavior and population-wide preferences, including stock price dynamics. In this study, we extend these findings to professional investors processing comprehensive real-world information on stock investment options while making predictions of long-term stock performance. Using functional MRI, we sampled investors’ neural responses to investment cases and assessed whether these responses relate to future performance on the stock market. We found that our sample of investors could not successfully predict future market performance of the investment cases, confirming that stated preferences do not predict the market. Stock metrics of the investment cases were not predictive of future stock performance either. However, as investors processed case information, nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activity was higher for investment cases that ended up overperforming in the market. These findings remained robust, even when controlling for stock metrics and investors’ predictions made in the scanner. Cross-validated prediction analysis indicated that NAcc activity could significantly predict future stock performance out-of-sample above chance. Our findings resonate with recent neuroforecasting studies and suggest that brain activity of professional investors may help in forecasting future stock performance.
... Individuals with IA are more prone to make inappropriate decisions due to dysfunctional brain activations in regions associated with reward, control/ regulation, and conflict monitoring. This could be because of altered activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in conflict monitoring during decision-making [10], and in the caudate nucleus, which is associated with reward prediction and anticipation [11]. Twenty-two papers were left after the thorough scrutinization. ...
With 5.3 billion users, the internet has enabled the communication and sharing of information globally and has reaped numerous benefits. However, with this increase in availability, a new phenomenon known as “internet addiction” has emerged. Internet addiction (IA) is a behavioral addiction—an excessive, uncontrollable, compulsive urge regarding internet use. IA is gradually becoming a serious health issue, affecting an estimated 24 million people in China and 1.5 million in Germany. Limited research has explored the brain effects of IA, which is considered to share neural mechanisms with substance use disorders (SUD). This study compares individualized autonomous behavior (IA) to social unemployment disorder (SUD). Results show similarities in neuroimaging studies but differences in temporal regions. IA is less severe and causes dysfunction in cortical regions, while SUD affects subcortical regions. Although not recognized in Europe and America, China, and South Korea label IA as a significant health concern. More research is needed to determine the long-term neurological effects and public health policies.
... The parietal lobe is involved in sensory processing and associative loops serving spatial orientation and perceptual events [23,44]. The precuneus (PRECUN), as well as more lateral portions of the superior parietal lobe, (i.e., posterior superior parietal cortex), are activated during visualization of prospective actions, introspection and self-reflection and risk avoidance behavior, assisting in multifactorial decision-making processes [23,45]. In SAD, functional activity of the parietal lobe is increased [46], disrupting PRECUN activity [26]. ...
Developing an anxiety disorder can be the source of further cognitive, behavioral, and emotional struggles, impacting the quality of life of people experiencing such disorders and leading to a burden on health systems. Increased knowledge of the neurobiological events leading to the development of such disorders can be crucial for diagnostic procedures, as well as the selection and adaptation of therapeutic and preventive measures. Despite recent advances in this field, research is still at the initial steps when it comes to understanding the specific neurofunctional processes guiding these changes in the brains of people with an anxiety disorder. This narrative review gathered knowledge from previous studies, with the aim of evaluating the neuroanatomical changes observed in individuals experiencing social or generalized anxiety disorder (SAD, GAD), to further link these anxiety-related structural modifications with brain function abnormalities and the expression of symptoms in individuals experiencing anxiety disorders. In addition, contradictory results are discussed, leading to suggestions for future studies.
... An emerging consensus is that the vmPFC and aIns may play opposing roles during economic decisions, mood, or learning, with neural activity in the vmPFC associated with increased riskseeking, pleasantness, reward-based learning and good mood (Engelmann & Tamir, 2009;Gueguen et al., 2021;Tobler et al., 2007;Venkatraman et al., 2009;Xue et al., 2009), whereas neural activity in the aIns has been linked to risk-averse decisions, unpleasantness, punishment-avoidance, and bad mood (Cecchi et al., 2022;Kuhnen & Knutson, 2005;Paulus et al., 2003;Pessiglione et al., 2006;Rolls et al., 2008;Rudorf et al., 2012;Venkatraman et al., 2009;Vinckier et al., 2018). Our findings demonstrate the causal role of aIns and vmPFC functional subregions during choices and confidence. ...
Neural activities within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula are associated with economic choices. However, whether these brain regions are causally related to these processes remains unclear. To address this issue, we leveraged rare intracerebral electrical stimulation (iES) data in epileptic patients. We show that opposite effects of iES on choice depend on the location of stimulation on a dorso-ventral axis within each area, thus demonstrating dissociable neural circuits causally involved in accepting versus avoiding challenges.
... 112 Thus, the existing literature suggests a predominant role of the insular cortex in states of stress and anxiety associated with uncertain situations, overestimated potential adverse outcomes and risk-taking decision-making behaviour. [113][114][115][116] SVR-LSM results further revealed significant clusters in IFG. Cha et al. 117 found altered IFG dynamics linked to abnormal structural and functional prefrontal-limbic connectivity in clinically anxious individuals. ...
Post-stroke depression affects about 30% of stroke patients and often hampers functional recovery. The diagnosis of depression encompasses heterogeneous symptoms at emotional, motivational, cognitive, behavioural or somatic levels. Evidence indicates that depression is caused by disruption of bio-aminergic fibre tracts between prefrontal and limbic or striatal brain regions comprising different functional networks. Voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping studies reported discrepant findings regarding the association between infarct locations and depression. Inconsistencies may be due to the usage of sum scores, thereby mixing different symptoms of depression. In this cross-sectional study, we used multivariate support vector regression for lesion–symptom mapping to identify regions significantly involved in distinct depressive symptom domains and global depression. MRI lesion data were included from 200 patients with acute first-ever ischaemic stroke (mean 0.9 ± 1.5 days of post-stroke). The Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating interview assessed depression severity in five symptom domains encompassing motivational, emotional and cognitive symptoms deficits, anxiety and somatic symptoms and was examined 8.4 days of post-stroke (±4.3). We found that global depression severity, irrespective of individual symptom domains, was primarily linked to right hemispheric lesions in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. In contrast, when considering distinct symptom domains individually, the analyses yielded much more sensitive results in regions where the correlations with the global depression score yielded no effects. Accordingly, motivational deficits were associated with lesions in orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, pre- and post-central gyri and basal ganglia, including putamen and pallidum. Lesions affecting the dorsal thalamus, anterior insula and somatosensory cortex were significantly associated with emotional symptoms such as sadness. Damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with concentration deficits, cognitive symptoms of guilt and self-reproach. Furthermore, somatic symptoms, including loss of appetite and sleep disturbances, were linked to the insula, parietal operculum and amygdala lesions. Likewise, anxiety was associated with lesions impacting the central operculum, insula and inferior frontal gyrus. Interestingly, symptoms of anxiety were exclusively left hemispheric, whereas the lesion–symptom associations of the other domains were lateralized to the right hemisphere. In conclusion, this large-scale study shows that in acute stroke patients, differential post-stroke depression symptom domains are associated with specific structural correlates. Our findings extend existing concepts on the neural underpinnings of depressive symptoms, indicating that differential lesion patterns lead to distinct depressive symptoms in the first weeks of post-stroke. These findings may facilitate the development of personalized treatments to improve post-stroke rehabilitation.
... When taking on the same level of risk, female participants tend to invoke more brain regions for neural processing to update and evaluate possible uncertainties associated with risky decisions. There is a significant correlation between neuroticism and the activation of brain regions involved in risky decision-making behavior (Paulus et al. 2003). Therefore, we suggest that the higher risk attribute of the Jenga task (because the risk of tower collapse increases with the gradual removal of the blocks) may influence this sex difference (i.e., activation in the Jenga task was associated with neuroticism in female participants but absent in male participants). ...
Cooperative behavior is a vital social interaction which plays a vital role in improving human survival and reproduction. However, few empirical studies have examined the differences between cooperative behaviors and the underlying neural substrates. In the present study, the brain activity of familiar dyads of the same sex was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy during three cooperative tasks (cooperative button-press, tangram, and Jenga tasks). We also measured the dyads’ empathic abilities and personality traits to investigate the relationships between individual characteristics and neural markers. The results showed that first, there were signifcant differences in intra-brain activation and inter-brain synchronization among different cooperative tasks in three dimensions: social cognition, behavioral response, and cognitive processing. Second, male participants require stronger intra-brain activation to achieve the same inter-brain synchronization
level as women in cooperative tasks. Third, when performing cooperative tasks involving high cognitive demands, Big Five Neuroticism may be an important predictor of neural activation in female participants. Inter-brain synchronization plays an important role in the frontal and temporoparietal junctions during interpersonal cooperation. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that mutual prediction theory is crucial for understanding the neural mechanisms of cooperative behavior.
... A past study also reported an increased insula activity when making voluntary choices with increased risk levels (Rao et al., 2008), and the increased activation of the insula is also consistent with its established role in linking cognitive and affective components during risk-taking decision-making (Sawamoto et al., 2000). Moreover, it was suggested that perceptual awareness of threat would modulate the activity in the insula, therefore, risk-induced activity in the insula may indicate a heightened processing of aversive emotion associated with increased risk (Paulus et al., 2003;Rao et al., 2008). Results of the current study suggested that OCD group showed significantly decreased insula activation modulated by risk levels compared with HCs, which may be attribute to their impaired function of the insula for processing the perception and emotion related to risk. ...
Background
The risk preference during decision-making and the neural substrates involved in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) remained unclear. The current study was designed to evaluate the risk-taking behaviors during decision-making and neural correlates in patients with OCD, thereby providing a deeper insight into their impaired decision-making function.
Methods
Fifty-one patients with OCD and 50 healthy controls (HCs) were included in this study. All subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans while completing the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). The behavior indicator and cognitive model parameter in BART, as well as the neural correlates of risk-taking behaviors were analyzed.
Results
Compared to HCs, the OCD group performed a significantly higher level of risk-averse behaviors, and the cognitive model parameter revealed that patients with OCD tend to decrease their risk level after receiving negative feedbacks during BART. The fMRI results based on prespecified brain regions showed that the OCD group exhibited significantly decreased activation modulated by risk levels both in the left and right insula.
Limitations
The effect of medication in this study could not be completely ruled out, and it is difficult to temporally separate different states of decision-making in the BART.
Conclusions
Individuals with OCD exhibited a higher level of risk aversion during decision-making process, and the dysfunction of the insula may be the neural basis of the increased risk aversion in OCD. These findings provide further insights into the mechanism of risk aversion and impaired decision-making function in individuals with OCD.
... There is growing consensus in the literature that the central nervous system reacts differentially to risk. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies reveal neural correlates of risky stimuli or decisions in various brain regions including the striatum, insula, inferior frontal gyrus, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex (Paulus, Rogalsky, Simmons, Feinstein & Stein, 2003). Decision making under ambiguity and under uncertainty is correlated to activities in the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and insula (Huettel, Stowe, Gordon, Warner & Platt, 2006). ...
... (3) Measures of cognitive impulsivity, referring to impulsive decision making behavior: in these tasks, subjects may select between a conservative option and a riskier option that offers a gain [82]. Such measures include the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), the Cambridge Gamble Task (CGT), the Risky Gains Task (RGT), the CPT Conner's Continuous Performance Test, and the Trail Making Test [79,[83][84][85][86]. Two studies used the IGT [56 ••, 63] and one of these studies also utilized the CPT [56••]; no impact in executive functioning among individuals with FA was found. ...
Food addiction (FA) has been found to be associated with impulsivity, mainly urgency (negative and positive) and lack of perseverance. The present systematic review aimed to identify differences in impulsivity by gender and current implications of treatment regarding FA and impulsivity in clinical populations. The search was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS) databases, using the following search terms: “food addiction” and “impuls*.” Studies were included if they were written in English, had an observational design (e.g., cross-sectional, longitudinal, case-control), and used a quantitative methodology, without a limited search period to avoid selection bias.
We included twenty-nine articles that aimed to examine whether there is a relationship between FA and impulsivity in clinical populations. Looking at gender differences, attentional and motor impulsivity were found to be related to FA in samples of women with obesity, whereas in the only study in a sample of men with obesity, cognitive and non-planning impulsivity appeared to be more associated with FA. Moreover, we identified three studies on the effects of interventions which included motivational, psychosocial, nutritional, and mindfulness components to address impulsivity and FA in cohorts with overweight/obesity and with substance use disorder (SUD). While some studies reported decreased levels of impulsivity, in other studies only FA decreased, and only one study showed significant changes in both FA and impulsivity after treatment.
Further research is needed to better understand the association between impulsivity and FA. Specifically, more studies with male populations could provide further evidence on how to better tailor treatment designs.
... These findings add to an extensive literature linking AIns activity to general arousal (38), negative arousal (33,39,40), risk avoidance (41)(42)(43)(44)(45), incentivized inhibition (46), and addiction (47,48). Taken together, the findings specifically imply that anticipation of loss may help explain how AIns function promotes abstinence from stimulant drug use. ...
Background:
Stimulant Use Disorder (SUD) patients suffer from high rates of relapse. While neurobehavioral mechanisms involved in initiating drug use have been extensively studied, less research has focused on relapse.
Methods:
To assess motivational processes involved in relapse and diagnosis, we acquired Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) responses to nondrug (monetary) gains and losses in detoxified SUD patients (n=68) and community controls (n=42). In a prospective multi-modal design, we combined imaging of brain function, brain structure, and behavior to longitudinally track subsequent risk for relapse. At the six-month follow-up assessment, 27 patients remained abstinent, but 33 had relapsed.
Results:
Patients with blunted Anterior Insula (AIns) activity during loss anticipation were more likely to relapse, an association which remained robust after controlling for potential confounds (i.e., craving, negative mood, years of use, age, and gender). Lower AIns activity during loss anticipation was associated with lower self-reported negative arousal to loss cues and slower behavioral responses to avoid losses, which independently also predicted relapses. AIns activity during loss anticipation was further associated with structural coherence of a tract connecting the AIns and Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc), as was functional connectivity between the AIns and NAcc during loss processing. These neurobehavioral responses did not, however, differ between patients and controls.
Conclusions:
Together, neurobehavioral markers predicted relapse above and beyond conventional self-report measures with a cross-validated accuracy of 72.7%. These findings offer convergent multi-modal evidence implicating blunted avoidance motivation in relapse to stimulant use, and so may guide interventions targeting those most vulnerable to relapse.
... While the insula has been implicated in processing various forms of risk and uncertainty, including natural and social risks (Elliott et al., 2000;Paulus et al., 2003;King-Casas et al., 2008), its activation is particularly pronounced when making decisions entailing potential betrayal compared to natural risk, leading to a reduced inclination for beneficial social interactions (Aimone et al., 2014). Other studies also support the role of the insula in (dis) trust. ...
Introduction
The investigation of trust vulnerability is important to the understanding of the potential mechanisms of trust formation and erosion. However, more effective exploration of trust vulnerability has been hindered due to the lack of consideration of risk sources and types of information.
Methods
This study extended the investigation of asymmetry to both social and natural risk under experiential and descriptive decisions. Using the trust game as the decision-making paradigm and money as the subject matter, the research employed experimental methods to examine how people perceive and make decisions after being positively and negatively affected by natural and social risks. A total of 286 college students were participated in our study. Study 1 (n = 138) and Study 2 (n = 148) explored asymmetry in experiential and descriptive decision separately.
Results
The findings indicated that when considering experiential information, negative information had a greater effect in reducing trust compared to the enhancing effect of positive information (t = −1.95, p = 0.050). Moreover, the study revealed that negative information had a stronger negative impact in the context of social risks rather than natural risks (t = −3.26, p = 0.002), suggesting that trust is vulnerable both internally and externally. Conversely, when considering descriptive information, the effect of both positive and negative information on trust was symmetrical, and the impact of negative information was less significant compared to that of natural risks, indicating that trust has a certain level of resilience (t = 2.25, p = 0.028).
Discussion
The study emphasizes the importance of refining risk sources and information characteristics in complex scenarios in order to improve understanding of trust enhancement and repair.
... This means increased and decreased activities in the ventral striatum (reward system) were experienced for monetary gains and losses, respectively. Paulus et al. (2013) found that activation in the right anterior insula is indeed associated with selecting a 'risky' over a 'safe' response. Furthermore, the degree of insula activation was linked to the personality trait of 'neuroticism' that will be explored later in this chapter. ...
Traditional finance and economic models often fail as descriptive models of human behaviour. While behavioural economists and cognitive psychologists demonstrated more practical alternatives to neoclassical economic theory, there remained a gap that would later be filled by physiologists and neuroscientists. There is a strong link between neural hardware and preferences. The field of neuroeconomics provides an integrated approach to financial decision-making that adds the understanding of genetics and neurobiology to that of cognitive psychology. This is set against the important backdrop of normative economic and finance theory that remains relevant in respect of what financial decision-makers should be aiming at. The field of neuroeconomics is one that remains in the exploratory phase, evidenced by the sometimes-contradictory findings that emerge as our understanding of the brain evolves. As the discipline of professional financial planning emerges, these learnings will become crucial in diagnosing and managing investor behaviour.KeywordsCognitive psychologyCortexAmygdalaLoss aversionFinancial decisionNeurobiologyGeneticsBehaviour taxDopamineNeuroeconomics
... Although we did not observe that men and women differed in VS whole-brain connectivity, we showed that higher HA was associated with less abstinenceinduced changes in VS-insula rsFC, a relationship that appeared driven by males, consistent with earlier findings that people with higher HA showed lower regional rsFCs and insular-opercular network efficiency during resting [64]. Both the VS [65] and insula [66] showed higher activity during risk-taking decisions in positive correlation with HA. Moreover, the potential sex difference indicates that sex may modulate the relationship between HA trait and abstinence-related changes in VS-insula rsFC. ...
Background
Personality traits contribute to the risks of smoking. The striatum has been implicated in nicotine addiction and nicotine deprivation is associated with alterations in resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the ventral (VS) and dorsal (DS) striatum. However, it remains unclear how striatal rsFC may change following overnight abstinence or how these shorter-term changes in inter-regional connectivity relate to personality traits.
Methods
In the current study, 28 smokers completed assessments with Fagerström Test of Nicotine Dependence, Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), as well as resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans during satiety and after overnight abstinence. We processed imaging data with published routines and evaluated the results with a corrected threshold.
Results
Smokers showed increases in the VS-insula rsFC but no significant changes in the DS rsFC after overnight abstinence as compared to satiety. The difference in the VS-insula rsFC (abstinence minus satiety) was negatively correlated with harm avoidance.
Conclusions
These findings highlighted striatal connectivity correlates of very short-term abstinence from smoking and how the VS-insula rsFC may vary with individual personality traits, interlinking neural markers and personality risk factors of cigarette smoking at the earliest stage of abstinence.
The Cambridge Handbook of Moral Psychology is an essential guide to the study of moral cognition and behavior. Originating as a philosophical exploration of values and virtues, moral psychology has evolved into a robust empirical science intersecting psychology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and neuroscience. Contributors to this interdisciplinary handbook explore a diverse set of topics, including moral judgment and decision making, altruism and empathy, and blame and punishment. Tailored for graduate students and researchers across psychology, philosophy, anthropology, neuroscience, political science, and economics, it offers a comprehensive survey of the latest research in moral psychology, illuminating both foundational concepts and cutting-edge developments.
Neural activity within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and anterior insula (aIns) is often associated with economic choices and confidence. However, it remains unclear whether these brain regions are causally related to these processes. To address this issue, we leveraged intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) data obtained from patients with epilepsy performing an economic choice task. Our results reveal opposite effects of stimulation on decision-making depending on its location along a dorso-ventral axis within each region. Specifically, stimulation of the ventral subregion within aIns reduces risk-taking by increasing participants’ sensitivity to potential losses, whereas stimulation of the dorsal subregion of aIns and the ventral portion of the vmPFC increases risk-taking by reducing participants’ sensitivity to losses. Moreover, stimulation of the aIns consistently decreases participants’ confidence, regardless of its location within the aIns. These findings suggest the existence of functionally dissociated neural subregions and circuits causally involved in accepting or avoiding challenges.
Background. Mental health disorders are among the leading causes of disability in childhood and adolescence. Notably, mental health disorders commonly co-occur, indicating that critical mechanisms may relate to multiple forms of psychopathology. One potential transdiagnostic mechanism that has been examined in youth is inhibitory control. However, previous neuroimaging research on inhibitory control in youth has typically not examined transdiagnostic symptom dimensions or used computational modeling to quantify subcomponent processes that affect inhibition. Methods. In the present study, a diverse sample of preadolescents who were oversampled for psychopathology risk (N=86, ages 8-12) completed a Go/No-Go task during an fMRI scan. Parents completed a series of questionnaires that were used to capture externalizing and internalizing symptom dimensions. Drift-diffusion modeling (DDM) was applied to preadolescents’ task behavior, and model parameters were linked with neural activation using two contrasts: successful inhibition and failed inhibition. Results. During successful inhibition, bilateral inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) activation was related to non-decision time, and ITG activation was associated with externalizing and internalizing symptoms. During failed inhibition, insula and putamen activation were associated with drift rates, as well as with internalizing symptoms, independent of externalizing symptoms. Conclusions. Results indicate that distinct cognitive processes are related to broader psychopathology symptom dimensions in preadolescents. Future studies should assess relations among computational parameters and clinical risk in youth, which may reveal important prevention and/or intervention targets.
Background
Decision-making under risk is a common challenge. It is known that risk-taking behavior varies between contexts of reward and punishment, yet the mechanisms underlying this asymmetry in risk sensitivity remain unclear.
Methods
This study used a monetary task to investigate neurochemical mechanisms and brain dynamics underpinning risk sensitivity. Twenty-eight participants engaged in a task requiring selection of visual stimuli to maximize monetary gains and minimize monetary losses. We modeled participant trial-and-error processes using reinforcement learning.
Results
Participants with higher subjective utility parameters showed risk preference in the gain domain (r = −0.59) and risk avoidance in the loss domain (r = −0.77). Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) revealed that risk avoidance in the loss domain was associated with γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in the ventral striatum (r = −0.42), but not in the insula (r = −0.15). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we tested whether risk-sensitive brain dynamics contribute to participant risky choices. Energy landscape analyses demonstrated that higher switching rates between brain states, including the striatum and insula, were correlated with risk avoidance in the loss domain (r = −0.59), a relationship not observed in the gain domain (r = −0.02).
Conclusions
These findings from MRS and fMRI suggest that distinct mechanisms are involved in gain/loss decision making, mediated by subcortical neurometabolite levels and brain dynamic transitions.
Mind wandering and neuroeconomics are closely related to each other since a wandering mind can never reach clear decisions. The best simile for the mind is to consider it like a stormy ocean. Just as innumerable waves arise each moment in the ocean as a result of a few known and several unknown factors; similarly, thoughts keep arising in the mind as a result of inputs from the various sensory modalities, emotions, dreams, memories and several unidentifiable factors. Yoga helps in creating excellent coordination between the mind and body in such a way that one gains full control over oneself. Although there are different techniques for practising Yoga, the aim of all of them is to achieve mastery over one’s own functions at the physical and mental levels. As per the ancient literature, Yoga means to unite or to join. Uniting here is related to synchronising the body, mind and soul for understanding oneself. This endows one with the ability to cope up with daily stressors and promote physical and mental health. Different techniques explained in yogic text as Ashtanga Yoga or eightfold steps help to balance the body, emotion and breathing. This chapter deals with the latest scientific perspectives of neuroeconomics and how it can be applied to diminish mind wandering through Yoga. The beneficial effect of Yoga on mind wandering and decision-making is already proven.
Physical pain and negative emotions represent two distinct drinking motives that contribute to harmful alcohol use. Proactive avoidance which can reduce problem drinking in response to these motives appears to be impaired in problem drinkers. However, proactive avoidance and its underlying neural deficits have not been assessed experimentally. How these deficits inter-relate with drinking motives to influence alcohol use also remains unclear. The current study leveraged neuroimaging data collected in forty-one problem and forty-one social drinkers who performed a probabilistic learning go/nogo task that involved proactive avoidance of painful outcomes. We characterized the regional brain responses to proactive avoidance and identified the neural correlates of drinking to avoid physical pain and negative emotions. Behavioral results confirmed problem drinkers’ proactive avoidance deficits in learning rate and performance accuracy, both which were associated with greater alcohol use. Imaging findings in problem drinkers showed that negative emotions as a drinking motive predicted attenuated right insula activation during proactive avoidance. In contrast, physical pain motive predicted reduced right putamen response. These regions’ activations as well as functional connectivity with the somatomotor cortex also demonstrated a negative relationship with drinking severity and positive relationship with proactive avoidance performance. Path modeling further delineated the pathways through which physical pain and negative emotions, along with alcohol use severity, influenced the neural and behavioral measures of proactive avoidance. Taken together, the current findings provide experimental evidence for proactive avoidance deficits in problem drinkers and establish the link between their neural underpinnings and alcohol misuse.
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is heritable. Thus, young adults with positive family histories represent an at‐risk group relative to those without a family history, and if studied at a time when both groups have similar levels of alcohol use, it provides an opportunity to identify neural processing patterns associated with risk for AUD. Previous studies have shown that diminished response to potential reward is associated with genetic risk for AUD, but it is unclear how threat may modulate this response. We used a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task during fMRI to examine neural correlates of the interaction between threat and reward anticipation in a sample of young adults with (n = 31) and without (n = 44) family histories of harmful alcohol use. We found an interaction (p = 0.048) between cue and group in the right nucleus accumbens where the family history positive group showed less differentiation to the anticipation of gaining 5 relative to gaining 5 relative to gaining $0 (p < 0.001). Family history‐positive individuals showed less activation in the left insula during both safe and threat blocks compared to family history‐negative individuals (p = 0.005), but the groups did not differ as a function of threat (p > 0.70). Young adults with, relative to without, enriched risk for AUD may have diminished reward processing via both neural and behavioural markers to potential rewarding and negative consequences. Neural response to threat may not be a contributing factor to risk at this stage.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been widely recognized as a crucial brain “control area.” Recently, its causal role in promoting deliberate decision-making through self-control and the asymmetric performance of the left and right DLPFC in control functions have attracted the interest of many researchers. This study was designed to investigate the role of DLPFC in decision-making behaviors and lateralization of its control function by systematically examining the effects of noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) over the DLPFC on intertemporal choice, risk decision-making, and social fairness-related decision-making tasks. Literature searches were implemented at PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, Wanfang Data, China Science and Technology Journal Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure until May 10, 2022. Meta-analytic results for included studies were estimated by random-effect models. A total of 33 eligible studies were identified, yielding 130 effect sizes. Our results indicated that compared to sham group, excitatory NIBS over the left DLPFC reduced delay discounting rate (standardized mean differences, SMD = −0.51; 95% confidence interval, 95% CI: [−0.81, −0.21]) and risk-taking performance (SMD = −0.39, 95% CI [−0.68, −0.10]), and inhibitory NIBS over the right DLPFC increased self-interested choice of unfair offers (SMD = 0.50, 95% CI [0.04, 0.97]). Finding of current work indicated that neural excitement of the DLPFC activation improve individuals’ self-control during decision-makings, whereas neural inhibition results in impaired control. In addition, our analyses furnish causal evidence for the presence of functional lateralization in the left and right DLPFC in monetary impulsive decision-making and social decision-making, respectively.
Objective
Decision-making is responsible for the best and worst of human nature. The field of decision science has done much to elucidate the psychological process of decision-making, variables that affect decision-making, and outcomes of disadvantageous decision-making. However, understanding any psychological process requires creation of reliable measures. Few studies focus on the test–retest reliability of behavioral decision-making tasks despite their utility in repeated assessment batteries.
Method
The present study examined the extent to which common behavioral decision-making tasks are reliable across time. Across two samples and two time points, participants completed multiple decision-making assessments.
Results
Results revealed moderate at best evidence of test–retest reliability across a 10-week interval in any of the tasks assessed.
Conclusions
These findings raise large questions for the field of behavioral decision-making and the utility for tasks to track changes in decision-making across time in clinical populations.
Risk-taking in the ‘work’ domain constitutes a fundamental building block for a wide range of important decisions (e.g., investment) and behaviors (e.g., creativity) of individuals, groups, and organizations. Yet, what remains unknown is the neurofunctional basis of work-domain risk-taking (WRT) and how these brain substrates act as mediators in relating individual personality traits such as regulatory focus and the Big Five to WRT. This study, with a sample of 201 healthy full-time employees, investigated the above questions using resting-state fMRI. The results indicated that individuals who engage more in WRT showed increased brain activity (indicated by fALFF) in the right medial frontal gyrus (MFG) and right insula brain areas involved in goal-directed and self-regulated functions, therefore providing unique neuroimaging evidence for the notion that risk-taking is highly domain specific. More importantly, we found that fALFF in the right MFG and right insula areas has a significant mediating role in relating promotion focus and neuroticism to WRT, respectively, suggesting that these traits might have more important roles in associating with WRT, and the brain activity of the two regions (i.e., right MFG and right insula) may act as the underlying mediating mechanisms. Managerial implications are discussed.
Objectives
Risk aversion has a substantial impact on decision making and is associated with key demographic characteristics. However, few studies have investigated whether risk aversion varies by race.
Method
We investigated racial differences in financial risk aversion in 684 older Black and White adults without dementia in the Minority Aging Research Study (MARS) and Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP) matched for age, education, sex and cognition using Mahalanobis distance. We also investigated whether select contextual factors (self-reported discrimination, socioeconomic status, and literacy) mediated or affective factors (trust, loneliness, and neuroticism) moderated any observed racial differences.
Results
In regression models adjusted for age, education, sex, and cognitive function, older Black adults were more risk averse than older White adults (Beta=0.1264, SE=0.0227, p-value=<0.00001). None of the contextual or affective factors mediated or moderated this association.
Discussion
Older Black adults are more financially risk averse than older White adults. Since risk aversion may be associated with important financial and health outcomes in older age, more research is needed to investigate the reasons for this difference.
The Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS) model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) explains symptoms of OCD as stemming from attenuated access to internal states, which is compensated for by using proxies, which are indices of these states that are more discernible or less ambiguous. Internal states in the SPIS model are subjective states that are not accessible to others, encompassing physiological states, motivations, preferences, memories, and emotions. Compensatory proxies in OCD include fixed rules and rituals as well as seeking and relying on external information. In the present review, we outline the SPIS model and describe its basic tenets. We then use the SPIS conceptualization to explain two pivotal OCD-related phenomena - obsessive doubt and compulsive rituals. Next, we provide a detailed overview of current empirical evidence supporting the SPIS in several domains, including physiological states, emotions, sense of understanding, decision-making, and sense of agency. We conclude by discussing possible neural correlates of the difficulty in accessing internal states, focusing on the anterior insular cortex (AIC) and highlighting potential clinical implications of the model to the treatment of OCD.
The present study employed a novel paradigm and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to uncover the specific regulatory mechanism of time pressure and empathy trait in prosocial decision-making, compared to self-decision making. Participants were instructed to decide whether to spend their own monetary interest to alleviate themselves (or another person) from unpleasant noise threats under high and low time pressures. On the behavioral level, results showed that high time pressure had a significant effect on reducing participants' willingness to spend money on relieving themselves from the noise, while there is a similar but not significant trend in prosocial decision-making. On the neural level, for self-concerned decision-making, low time pressure activated the bilateral insula more strongly than high time pressure. For prosocial decision-making, high time pressure suppressed activations in multiple brain regions related to empathy (temporal pole, middle temporal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus), valuation (medial orbitofrontal cortex), and emotion (putamen). The functional connectivity strength among these regions, especially the connectivity between the medial orbitofrontal cortex and putamen, significantly predicted the effect of time pressure on prosocial decision-making at the behavioral level. Additionally , we discovered the activation of the medial orbitofrontal cortex partially mediated the effect of empathy trait scores on prosocial decision-making. These findings suggest that (1) there are different neural underpinnings for the modulation of time pressure for self and prosocial decision-making, and (2) the empathy trait plays a crucial role in the latter.
Introduction
Previous neuroimaging evidence highlighted the role of the insular and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in conflict monitoring and decision-making, thus supporting the translational implications of targeting these regions in neuro-stimulation treatments for clinical purposes. Recent advancements of targeting and modeling procedures for high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) provided methodological support for the stimulation of otherwise challenging targets, and a previous study confirmed that cathodal HD-tDCS of the dACC modulates executive control and decision-making metrics in healthy individuals. On the other hand, evidence on the effect of stimulating the insula is still needed.
Methods
We used a modeling/targeting procedure to investigate the effect of stimulating the posterior insula on Flanker and gambling tasks assessing, respectively, executive control and both loss and risk aversion in decision-making. HD-tDCS was applied through 6 small electrodes delivering anodal, cathodal or sham stimulation for 20 min in a within-subject offline design with three separate sessions.
Results
Bayesian statistical analyses on Flanker conflict effect, as well as loss and risk aversion, provided moderate evidence for the null model (i.e., absence of HD-tDCS modulation).
Discussion
These findings suggest that further research on the effect of HD-tDCS on different regions is required to define reliable targets for clinical applications. While modeling and targeting procedures for neuromodulation in clinical research could lead to innovative protocols for stand-alone treatment, or possibly in combination with cognitive training, assessing the effectiveness of insula stimulation might require sensitive metrics other than those investigated here.
Middle adolescence is the period of development during which youth begin to engage in health risk behaviors such as delinquent behavior and substance use. A promising mechanism for guiding adolescents away from risky choices is the extent to which adolescents are sensitive to the likelihood of receiving valued outcomes. Few studies have examined longitudinal change in adolescent risky decision making and its neural correlates. To this end, the present longitudinal three-wave study (Nw1 = 157, Mw1= 13.50 years; Nw2 = 148, Mw2= 14.52 years; Nw3 = 143, Mw3= 15.55 years) investigated the ontogeny of mid-adolescent behavioral and neural risk sensitivity, and their baseline relations to longitudinal self-reported health risk behaviors. Results showed that adolescents became more sensitive to risk both in behavior and the brain during middle adolescence. Across three years, we observed lower risk-taking and greater risk-related activation in the bilateral insular cortex. When examining how baseline levels of risk sensitivity were related to longitudinal changes in real-life health risk behaviors, we found that Wave 1 insular activity was related to increases in self-reported health risk behaviors over the three years. This research highlights the normative maturation of risk-related processes at the behavioral and neural levels during mid-adolescence.
Visceral factors are negative emotions and drive and feeling states that grab people's attention and motivate them to engage in certain behaviors. They can contribute to discrepancies between an individual's long-term self-interest and their actual behavior. One such discrepancy concerns risk-taking in health contexts as well as in a variety of other domains such as financial or career-related decisions. This study examines the relationship between somatic symptoms of pain and domain-specific risk attitudes in participants of a large population-based cohort study. Somatic symptoms refer to back pain; pain in arms, legs, or joints; and headache. We show that the association between pain and risk attitudes is especially robust for the financial and leisure/sports domain across different model specifications. Pain is negatively associated with willingness to take risks in both domains. When controlling for fatigue (another visceral factor), the relationship between pain and risk attitudes persists only in the financial context. However, associations between fatigue and risk attitudes emerge in the general, health, leisure/sports, and career domains. We discuss potential implications of our findings especially in light of financial decision-making.
Studies of risk perception examine the judgements people make when they are asked to characterize and evaluate hazardous activities
and technologies. This research aims to aid risk analysis and policy-making by providing a basis for understanding and anticipating
public responses to hazards and improving the communication of risk information among lay people, technical experts, and decision-makers.
This work assumes that those who promote and regulate health and safety need to understand how people think about and respond
to risk. Without such understanding, well-intended policies may be ineffective.
• A systematic method for clinical description and classification of both normal and abnormal personality variants is proposed based on a general biosocial theory of personality. Three dimensions of personality are defined in terms of the basic stimulus-response characteristics of novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence. The possible underlying genetic and neuroanatomical bases of observed variation in these dimensions are reviewed and considered in relation to adaptive responses to environmental challenge. The functional interaction of these dimensions leads to integrated patterns of differential response to novelty, punishment, and reward. The possible tridimensional combinations of extreme (high or low) variants on these basic stimulusresponse characteristics correspond closely to traditional descriptions of personality disorders. This reconciles dimensional and categorical approaches to personality description. It also implies that the underlying structure of normal adaptive traits is the same as that of maladaptive personality traits, except for schizotypal and paranoid disorders.
Personality psychologists from a variety of theoretical perspectives have recently concluded that personality traits can be summarized in terms of a 5-factor model. This article describes the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO–PI), a measure of these 5 factors and some of the traits that define them, and its use in clinical practice. Recent studies suggest that NEO–PI scales are reliable and valid in clinical samples as in normal samples. The use of self-report personality measures in clinical samples is discussed, and data from 117 "normal" adult men and women are presented to show links between the NEO–PI scales and psychopathology as measured by D. N. Jackson's (1989) Basic Personality Inventory and L. Morey's (1991) Personality Assessment Inventory. The authors argue that the NEO–PI may be useful to clinicians in understanding the patient, formulating a diagnosis, establishing rapport, developing insight, anticipating the course of therapy, and selecting the optimal form of treatment for the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Risk is pervasive and seemingly inescapable in contemporary life. Moreover, the positive and negative consequences of people's actions in the presence of risk are often dramatic. That is why risk taking has been studied by so many different scholars within so many different fields, from business and engineering to health care and developmental education.
"Risk-Taking Behavior" is an examination of the psychological foundations and ramifications of this activity. A major feature of the book is its comprehensive coverage of ideas from multiple perspectives—within psychology itself as well as in areas like economics, medicine, and decision analysis—and its integration of them. The book offers detailed insights into fundamental risk concepts; discoveries about risk taking in group settings; models and evidence about practices that affect individuals' susceptibility to health threats; recommendations on how personnel training as well as product, architectural, and organizational design can encourage appropriate risk taking; and future research on this most compelling topic.
This well-referenced book should prove a valuable resource for a broad audience of readers, such as research psychologists, decision scientists, risk managers, health professionals, staff supervisors, and policy makers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Localized amygdalar lesions in humans produce deficits in the recognition of fearful facial expressions. We used functional neuroimaging to test two hypotheses: (i) that the amygdala and some of its functionally connected structures mediate specific neural responses to fearful expressions; (ii) that the early visual processing of emotional faces can be influenced by amygdalar activity. Normal subjects were scanned using PET while they performed a gender discrimination task involving static grey-scale images of faces expressing varying degrees of fear or happiness. In support of the first hypothesis, enhanced activity in the left amygdala, left pulvinar, left anterior insula and bilateral anterior cingulate gyri was observed during the processing of fearful faces. Evidence consistent with the second hypothesis was obtained by a demonstration that amygdalar responses predict expression-specific neural activity in extrastriate cortex.
The history, rationale, and development of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) is described. The SCID is a semistructured interview for making the major Axis I DSM-III-R diagnoses. It is administered by a clinician and includes an introductory overview followed by nine modules, seven of which represent the major axis I diagnostic classes. Because of its modular construction, it can be adapted for use in studies in which particular diagnoses are not of interest. Using a decision tree approach, the SCID guides the clinician in testing diagnostic hypotheses as the interview is conducted. The output of the SCID is a record of the presence or absence of each of the disorders being considered, for current episode (past month) and for lifetime occurrence.
The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire is a self-report personality inventory measuring three major personality dimensions: Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, and Reward Dependence. Normative data, based on a U.S. national probability sample of 1,019 adults, are presented and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire are discussed.
Common efferent projections of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex were examined in 3 rhesus monkeys by placing injections of tritiated amino acids and HRP in frontal and parietal cortices, respectively, of the same hemisphere. Terminal labeling originating from both frontal and parietal injection sites was found to be in apposition in 15 ipsilateral cortical areas: the supplementary motor cortex, the dorsal premotor cortex, the ventral premotor cortex, the anterior arcuate cortex (including the frontal eye fields), the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices, the frontoparietal operculum, the insular cortex, the medial parietal cortex, the superior temporal cortex, the parahippocampal gyrus, the presubiculum, the caudomedial lobule, and the medial prestriate cortex. Convergent terminal labeling was observed in the contralateral hemisphere as well, most prominently in the principal sulcal cortex, the superior arcuate cortex, and the superior temporal cortex. In certain common target areas, as for example the cingulate cortices, frontal and parietal efferents terminate in an array of interdigitating columns, an arrangement much like that observed for callosal and associational projections to the principal sulcus (Goldman-Rakic and Schwartz, 1982). In other areas, frontal and parietal terminals exhibit a laminar complementarity: in the depths of the superior temporal sulcus, prefrontal terminals are densely distributed within laminae I, III, and V, whereas parietal terminals occupy mainly laminae IV and VI directly below the prefrontal bands. Subcortical structures also receive apposing or overlapping projections from both prefrontal and parietal cortices. The dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices project to adjacent, longitudinal domains of the neostriatum, as has been described previously (Selemon and Goldman-Rakic, 1985); these projections are also found in close apposition in the claustrum, the amygdala, the caudomedial lobule, and throughout the anterior medial, medial dorsal, lateral dorsal, and medial pulvinar nuclei of the thalamus. In the brain stem, both areas of association cortex project to the intermediate layers of the superior colliculus and to the midline reticular formation of the pons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
A systematic method for clinical description and classification of both normal and abnormal personality variants is proposed based on a general biosocial theory of personality. Three dimensions of personality are defined in terms of the basic stimulus-response characteristics of novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence. The possible underlying genetic and neuroanatomical bases of observed variation in these dimensions are reviewed and considered in relation to adaptive responses to environmental challenge. The functional interaction of these dimensions leads to integrated patterns of differential response to novelty, punishment, and reward. The possible tridimensional combinations of extreme (high or low) variants on these basic stimulus-response characteristics correspond closely to traditional descriptions of personality disorders. This reconciles dimensional and categorical approaches to personality description. It also implies that the underlying structure of normal adaptive traits is the same as that of maladaptive personality traits, except for schizotypal and paranoid disorders.
To elucidate the nature of the etiologic relationship between personality and major depression in women.
A longitudinal twin design in which twins completed a time 1 questionnaire and, 15 months later, were personally interviewed for the occurrence of major depression during the last year and completed a time 2-questionnaire. Both questionnaires contained short forms assessing neuroticism and extraversion.
1733 twins from female-female pairs ascertained from the population-based Virginia Twin Registry.
Extraversion was unrelated to lifetime or 1-year prevalence of major depression. Neuroticism was strongly related to lifetime prevalence of major depression and robustly predicted the prospective 1-year prevalence of major depression in those who, at time 1, denied previous depressive episodes. However, controlling for levels of neuroticism at time 1, levels of neuroticism at time 2 were moderately elevated in those who had had an episode of major depression between times 1 and 2 ("scar" effect) and substantially elevated in those experiencing an episode of major depression at time 2 ("state" effect). In those who developed major depression, levels of neuroticism did not predict time to onset. In the best-fit longitudinal twin model, the proportion of the observed correlation between neuroticism and the liability to major depression that is due to shared genetic risk factors was estimated at around 70%, that due to shared environmental risk factors at around 20%, and that due to a direct causal effect of major depression on neuroticism (via both "scar" and "state" effects) at around 10%. Approximately 55% of the genetic liability of major depression appeared to be shared with neuroticism, while 45% was unique to major depression.
In women, the relationship between neuroticism and the liability to major depression is substantial and largely the result of genetic factors that predispose to both neuroticism and major depression.
The linear transform model of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) hypothesizes that fMRI responses are proportional to local average neural activity averaged over a period of time. This work reports results from three empirical tests that support this hypothesis. First, fMRI responses in human primary visual cortex (V1) depend separably on stimulus timing and stimulus contrast. Second, responses to long-duration stimuli can be predicted from responses to shorter duration stimuli. Third, the noise in the fMRI data is independent of stimulus contrast and temporal period. Although these tests can not prove the correctness of the linear transform model, they might have been used to reject the model. Because the linear transform model is consistent with our data, we proceeded to estimate the temporal fMRI impulse-response function and the underlying (presumably neural) contrast-response function of human V1.
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) consists of 30 facet scales that define the broad domains of the Five-Factor Model of personality. No major revisions of the basic model are anticipated in the near future. Despite their popularity, social desirability and inconsistency scales will not be added to the NEO-PI-R because their validity and utility have not yet been demonstrated. Among possible changes are minor modifications in wording and more extensive adaptations for adolescents and for populations with low reading levels. Contextualized (e.g., work-related) versions of the instrument will be further explored. Many changes are more easily implemented on the computer than the print version of the instrument.
Neuropsychological studies report more impaired responses to facial expressions of fear than disgust in people with amygdala lesions, and vice versa in people with Huntington's disease. Experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have confirmed the role of the amygdala in the response to fearful faces and have implicated the anterior insula in the response to facial expressions of disgust. We used fMRI to extend these studies to the perception of fear and disgust from both facial and vocal expressions. Consistent with neuropsychological findings, both types of fearful stimuli activated the amygdala. Facial expressions of disgust activated the anterior insula and the caudate-putamen; vocal expressions of disgust did not significantly activate either of these regions. All four types of stimuli activated the superior temporal gyrus. Our findings therefore (i) support the differential localization of the neural substrates of fear and disgust; (ii) confirm the involvement of the amygdala in the emotion of fear, whether evoked by facial or vocal expressions; (iii) confirm the involvement of the anterior insula and the striatum in reactions to facial expressions of disgust; and (iv) suggest a possible general role for the perception of emotional expressions for the superior temporal gyrus.
We used a novel computerized decision-making task to compare the decision-making behavior of chronic amphetamine abusers, chronic opiate abusers, and patients with focal lesions of orbital prefrontal cortex (PFC) or dorsolateral/medial PFC. We also assessed the effects of reducing central 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) activity using a tryptophan-depleting amino acid drink in normal volunteers. Chronic amphetamine abusers showed suboptimal decisions (correlated with years of abuse), and deliberated for significantly longer before making their choices. The opiate abusers exhibited only the second of these behavioral changes. Importantly, both sub-optimal choices and increased deliberation times were evident in the patients with damage to orbitofrontal PFC but not other sectors of PFC. Qualitatively, the performance of the subjects with lowered plasma tryptophan was similar to that associated with amphetamine abuse, consistent with recent reports of depleted 5-HT in the orbital regions of PFC of methamphetamine abusers. Overall, these data suggest that chronic amphetamine abusers show similar decision-making deficits to those seen after focal damage to orbitofrontal PFC. These deficits may reflect altered neuromodulation of the orbitofrontal PFC and interconnected limbic-striatal systems by both the ascending 5-HT and mesocortical dopamine (DA) projections.
Eight patients with relatively mild frontal variant frontotemporal dementia (fvFTD) were compared with age- and IQ-matched control volunteers on tests of executive and mnemonic function. Tests of pattern and spatial recognition memory, spatial span, spatial working memory, planning, visual discrimination learning/attentional set-shifting and decision-making were employed. Patients with fvFTD were found to have deficits in the visual discrimination learning paradigm specific to the reversal stages. Furthermore, in the decision-making paradigm, patients were found to show genuine risk-taking behaviour with increased deliberation times rather than merely impulsive behaviour. It was especially notable that these patients demonstrated virtually no deficits in other tests that have also been shown to be sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction, such as the spatial working memory and planning tasks. These results are discussed in relation to the possible underlying neuropathology, the anatomical connectivity and the hypothesized heterogeneous functions of areas of the prefrontal cortex. In particular, given the nature of the cognitive deficits demonstrated by these patients, we postulate that, relatively early in the course of the disease, the ventromedial (or orbitofrontal) cortex is a major locus of dysfunction and that this may relate to the behavioural presentation of these patients clinically described in the individual case histories.
Patients sustaining lesions of the orbital prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibit marked impairments in the performance of laboratory-based gambling, or risk-taking, tasks, suggesting that this part of the human PFC contributes to decision-making cognition. However, to date, little is known about the particular regions of the orbital cortex that participate in this function. In the present study, eight healthy volunteers were scanned, using H(2)(15)0 PET technology, while performing a novel computerized risk-taking task. The task involved predicting which of two mutually exclusive outcomes would occur, but critically, the larger reward (and penalty) was associated with choice of the least likely outcome, whereas the smallest reward (and penalty) was associated with choice of the most likely outcome. Resolving these "conflicting" decisions was associated with three distinct foci of regional cerebral blood flow increase within the right inferior and orbital PFC: laterally, in the anterior part of the middle frontal gyrus [Brodmann area 10 (BA 10)], medially, in the orbital gyrus (BA 11), and posteriorly, in the anterior portion of the inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47). By contrast, increases in the degree of conflict inherent in these decisions was associated with only limited changes in activity within orbital PFC and the anterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest that decision making recruits neural activity from multiple regions of the inferior PFC that receive information from a diverse set of cortical and limbic inputs, and that the contribution of the orbitofrontal regions may involve processing changes in reward-related information.
Previous functional neuroimaging studies have characterized brain systems mediating associative learning using classical delay conditioning paradigms. In the present study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize neuronal responses mediating aversive trace conditioning. During conditioning, neutral auditory tones were paired with an aversive sound [unconditioned stimulus (US)]. We compared neuronal responses evoked by conditioned (CS+) and nonconditioned (CS-) stimuli in which a 50% pairing of CS+ and the US enabled us to limit our analysis to responses evoked by the CS+ alone. Differential responses (CS+ vs CS-), related to conditioning, were observed in anterior cingulate and anterior insula, regions previously implicated in delay fear conditioning. Differential responses were also observed in the amygdala and hippocampus that were best characterized with a time x stimulus interaction, indicating rapid adaptation of CS+-specific responses in medial temporal lobe. These results are strikingly similar to those obtained with a previous delay conditioning experiment and are in accord with a preferential role for medial temporal lobe structures during the early phase of conditioning. However, an additional activation of anterior hippocampus in the present experiment supports a view that its role in trace conditioning is to maintain a memory trace between the offset of the CS+ and the delayed onset of the US to enable associative learning in trace conditioning.
Eight patients with relatively mild frontal variant frontotemporal dementia (fvFTD) were compared with age-and IQ-matched control volunteers on tests of executive and mnemonic function. Tests of pattern and spatial recognition memory, spatial span, spatial working memory, planning, visual discrimination learning/ attentional set-shifting and decision-making were employed. Patients with fvFTD were found to have deficits in the visual discrimination learning paradigm specific to the reversal stages. Furthermore, in the decision-making paradigm, patients were found to show genuine risk-taking behaviour with increased deliberation times rather than merely impulsive behaviour. It was especially notable that
In this article I discuss a hypothesis, known as the somatic marker hypothesis, which I believe is relevant to the understanding of processes of human reasoning and decision making. The ventromedial sector of the prefrontal cortices is critical to the operations postulated here, but the hypothesis does not necessarily apply to prefrontal cortex as a whole and should not be seen as an attempt to unify frontal lobe functions under a single mechanism. The key idea in the hypothesis is that 'marker' signals influence the processes of response to stimuli, at multiple levels of operation, some of which occur overtly (consciously, 'in mind') and some of which occur covertly (non-consciously, in a non-minded manner). The marker signals arise in bioregulatory processes, including those which express themselves in emotions and feelings, but are not necessarily confined to those alone. This is the reason why the markers are termed somatic: they relate to body-state structure and regulation even when they do not arise in the body proper but rather in the brain's representation of the body. Examples of the covert action of 'marker' signals are the undeliberated inhibition of a response learned previously; the introduction of a bias in the selection of an aversive or appetitive mode of behaviour, or in the otherwise deliberate evaluation of varied option-outcome scenarios. Examples of overt action include the conscious 'qualifying' of certain option-outcome scenarios as dangerous or advantageous. The hypothesis rejects attempts to limit human reasoning and decision making to mechanisms relying, in an exclusive and unrelated manner, on either conditioning alone or cognition alone.
This research explores whether there are systematic cross-national differences in choice-inferred risk preferences between Americans and Chinese. Study 1 found (a) that the Chinese were significantly more risk seeking than the Americans, yet (b) that both nationals predicted exactly the opposite - that the Americans would be more risk seeking. Study 2 compared Americans and Chinese risk preferences in investment, medical and academic decisions, and found that Chinese were more risk seeking than Americans only in the investment domain and not in the other domains. These results are explained in terms of a cushion hypothesis, which suggests people in a collectivist society, such as China, are more likely to receive financial help if they are in need (i.e. they could be cushioned if they fell), and consequently, they are less risk averse than those in an individualistic society such as the USA.
Localized amygdalar lesions in humans produce deficits in the recognition of fearful facial expressions. We used functional neuroimaging to test two hypotheses: (i) that the amygdala and some of its functionally connected structures mediate specific neural responses to fearful expressions; (ii) that the early visual processing of emotional faces can be influenced by amygdalar activity. Normal subjects were scanned using PET while they performed a gender discrimination task involving static grey-scale images of faces expressing varying degrees of fear or happiness. In support of the first hypothesis, enhanced activity in the left amygdala, left pulvinar, left anterior insula and bilateral anterior cingulate gyri was observed during the processing of fearful faces. Evidence consistent with the second hypothesis was obtained by a demonstration that amygdalar responses predict expression-specific neural activity in extrastriate cortex.
Behavioral ecologists argue that evolution drives animal behavior to efficiently solve the problems animals face in their environmental niches. The ultimate evolutionary causes of decision making, they contend, can be found in economic analyses of organisms and their environments. Neurobiologists interested in how animals make decisons have, in contrast, focused their efforts on understanding the neurobiological hardware that serves as a more proximal cause of that same behavior. Describing the flow of information within the nervous system without regard to these larger goals has been their focus. Recent work in a number of laboratories has begun to suggest that these two approaches are beginning to fuse. It may soon be possible to view the nervous system as a representational process that solves the mathematically defined economic problems animals face by making efficient decisions. These developments in the neurobiological theory of choice, and the new schema they imply, form the subject of this article.
The typical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study presents a formidable problem of multiple statistical comparisons (i.e, > 10,000 in a 128 x 128 image). To protect against false positives, investigators have typically relied on decreasing the per pixel false positive probability. This approach incurs an inevitable loss of power to detect statistically significant activity. An alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented. If one knows the probability distribution of such cluster sizes as a function of per pixel false positive probability, one can use cluster-size thresholds independently to reject false positives. Both Monte Carlo simulations and fMRI studies of human subjects have been used to verify that this approach can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.
The projections of the cerebral cortex to the extended amygdala were studied in the rat using anterograde and retrograde tract-tracing techniques. Most cortical areas with strong projections to the extended amygdala preferentially targeted either the medial extended amygdala (including the medial amygdalar nucleus, ventromedial substantia innominata, and the medial part of the bed nucleus the stria terminalis) or the central extended amygdala (including the central amygdalar nucleus, dorsolateral substantia innominata, and the lateral part of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis). Some cortical areas, however, had equal projections to both medial and central portions. The main areas projecting preferentially to the medial extended amygdala were the ventral subiculum, infralimbic cortex, ventral agranular insular area, and the rostral part of the ventrolateral entorhinal area. The main areas projecting preferentially to the central extended amygdala were the prefrontal cortex, viscerosensory and somatosensory portions of the insular cortex, and the amygdalopiriform transitional area. It is suggested that these cortical inputs may be important for cognitive, mnemonic, and affective aspects of emotional and motivated behavior.
This study compared the personality traits of subjects with bipolar I disorder in remission to the personality traits of subjects with no history of any mental illness. Subjects were assessed as part of a prospective, multicenter, naturalistic study of mood disorders. Diagnoses were rendered according to Research Diagnostic Criteria, through use of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia — Lifetime Version. A total of 30 euthymic bipolar I subjects were compared to 974 never-ill subjects on 17 personality scales selected for their relevance to mood disorders. The subjects with bipolar I disorder in remission had more aberrant scores on 6 of the 17 personality measures, including Emotional Stability, Objectivity, Neuroticism, Ego Resiliency, Ego Control, and Hysterical Factor. These findings indicate that patients with bipolar I disorder in remission have personality traits that differ from those of normal controls.
It has been shown that, under certain circumstances, anxiety is associated with a processing bias favouring threatening information. To explain why this bias is apparent only on certain cognitive tasks, it has recently been proposed that the bias operates only when there is competition for processing resources. The present study sought to replicate previous evidence for the ‘competition’ hypothesis, while taking into account a potential confounding factor of word categorization in the stimulus materials. Anxious patients and normal controls were compared on their lexical decision times for threatening, categorized neutral and uncategorized neutral words that were presented either alone or accompanied by irrelevant nonword stimuli (i.e. absence vs presence of competition). The results were only partially consistent with previous findings and highlighted the importance of considering separately the effects of word valence and word categorization. When the latter was taken into account, the results indicated that an anxiety-related bias was only evident when there was competition for processing resources and when the information was presented outside the focus of Ss' attention. A modified version of the competition hypothesis was proposed in the light of these results and previous research into attentional biases in anxiety.
Abnormal decision making is a central feature of neuropsychiatric disorders. Recent investigations of the neural substrates underlying decision making have involved qualitative assessment of the cognition of decision making in clinical lesion studies (in patients with frontal lobe dementia) and neuropsychiatric disorders such as mania, substance abuse and personality disorders. A neural network involving the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum and modulatory ascending neurotransmitter systems has been identified as having a fundamental role in decision making and in the neural basis of neuropsychiatric diseases. This network accounts for the dissociations among decision-making deficits in different clinical populations. Ultimately, a more refined and sophisticated characterization of such deficits might guide the early diagnosis and cognitive and therapeutic rehabilitation of these patients.
Injections of HRP-WGA in four cytoarchitectonic subdivisions of the posterior parietal cortex in rhesus monkeys allowed us to examine the major limbic and sensory afferent and efferent connections of each area. Area 7a (the caudal part of the posterior parietal lobe) is reciprocally interconnected with multiple visual-related areas: the superior temporal polysensory area (STP) in the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus (STS), visual motion areas in the upper bank of STS, the dorsal prelunate gyrus, and portions of V2 and the parieto-occipital (PO) area. Area 7a is also heavily interconnected with limbic areas: the ventral posterior cingulate cortex, agranular retrosplenial cortex, caudomedial lobule, the parahippocampal gyrus, and the presubiculum. By contrast, the adjacent subdivision, area 7ip (within the posterior bank of the intraparietal sulcus), has few limbic connections but projects to and receives projections from widespread visual areas different than those that are connected with area 7a: the ventral bank and fundus of the STS including part of the STP cortex and the inferotemporal cortex (IT), areas MT (middle temporal) and possibly MTp (MT peripheral) and FST (fundal superior temporal) and portions of V2, V3v, V3d, V3A, V4, PO, and the inferior temporal (IT) convexity cortex. The connections between posterior parietal areas and visual areas located on the medial surface of the occipital and parieto-occipital cortex, containing peripheral representations of the visual field (V2, V3, PO), represent a major previously unrecognized source of visual inputs to the parietal association cortex. Area 7b (the rostral part of the posterior parietal lobe) was distinctive among parietal areas in its selective association with somatosensory-related areas: S1, S2, 5, the vestibular cortex, the insular cortex, and the supplementary somatosensory area (SSA). Like 7ip, area 7b had few limbic associations. Area 7m (on the medial posterior parietal cortex) has its own topographically distinct connections with the limbic (the posterior ventral bank of the cingulate sulcus, granular retrosplenial cortex, and presubiculum), visual (V2, PO, and the visual motion cortex in the upper bank of the STS), and somatosensory (SSA, and area 5) cortical areas.
Each parietal subdivision is extensively interconnected with areas of the contralateral hemisphere, including both the homotopic cortex and widespread heterotopic areas. Indeed, each area is interconnected with as many areas of the contralateral hemisphere as it is within the ipsilateral one, though less intensively. This pattern of distribution allows for a remarkable degree of interhemispheric integration.
These findings provide evidence that each major subdivision of posteriorparietal cortex has a unique set of reciprocal connections with limbic and sen-sory areas in both hemispheres. For the most part, each parietalsubdivision, rather than being a site of multimodal convergence, receives input from only one sensory modality, though often from different channels of information within that modality. For example, the two streams of visual information tra-ditionally linked to pattern and motion seem to converge in both areas 7a and 7ip. The areal parcellation of parietal cortex byits afferent and efferent con-nections provides an anatomical foundation for a parallel processing model of higher cortical functions.
The typical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study presents a formidable problem of multiple statistical comparisons (i.e., > 10,000 in a 128 x 128 image). To protect against false positives, investigators have typically relied on decreasing the per pixel false positive probability. This approach incurs an inevitable loss of power to detect statistically significant activity. An alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented. If one knows the probability distribution of such cluster sizes as a function of per pixel false positive probability, one can use cluster-size thresholds independently to reject false positives. Both Monte Carlo simulations and fMRI studies of human subjects have been used to verify that this approach can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.
To make a dimensional assessment of personality in individuals with pathological anxiety, the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) was administered to 32 patients with panic disorder (PD) and 49 patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The most striking findings were a substantially increased score on the harm avoidance dimension in both groups of patients, and a lack of significant differences between the TPQ scores in patients with PD and GAD. The former finding suggests that higher levels of harm avoidance may be common to (although not necessarily specific for) various types of anxiety disorders. The latter finding is in agreement with the findings that PD and GAD do not differ significantly with respect to the associated personality disorder diagnoses, which may further cast a doubt on the validity of the distinction between PD and GAD.
A package of computer programs for analysis and visualization of three-dimensional human brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) results is described. The software can color overlay neural activation maps onto higher resolution anatomical scans. Slices in each cardinal plane can be viewed simultaneously. Manual placement of markers on anatomical landmarks allows transformation of anatomical and functional scans into stereotaxic (Talairach-Tournoux) coordinates. The techniques for automatically generating transformed functional data sets from manually labeled anatomical data sets are described. Facilities are provided for several types of statistical analyses of multiple 3D functional data sets. The programs are written in ANSI C and Motif 1.2 to run on Unix workstations.
In this article I discuss a hypothesis, known as the somatic marker hypothesis, which I believe is relevant to the understanding of processes of human reasoning and decision making. The ventromedial sector of the prefrontal cortices is critical to the operations postulated here, but the hypothesis does not necessarily apply to prefrontal cortex as a whole and should not be seen as an attempt to unify frontal lobe functions under a single mechanism. The key idea in the hypothesis is that 'marker' signals influence the processes of response to stimuli, at multiple levels of operation, some of which occur overtly (consciously, 'in mind') and some of which occur covertly (non-consciously, in a non-minded manner). The marker signals arise in bioregulatory processes, including those which express themselves in emotions and feelings, but are not necessarily confined to those alone. This is the reason why the markers are termed somatic: they relate to body-state structure and regulation even when they do not arise in the body proper but rather in the brain's representation of the body. Examples of the covert action of 'marker' signals are the undeliberated inhibition of a response learned previously; the introduction of a bias in the selection of an aversive or appetitive mode of behaviour, or in the otherwise deliberate evaluation of varied option-outcome scenarios. Examples of overt action include the conscious 'qualifying' of certain option-outcome scenarios as dangerous or advantageous. The hypothesis rejects attempts to limit human reasoning and decision making to mechanisms relying, in an exclusive and unrelated manner, on either conditioning alone or cognition alone.
We have used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize neural responses associated with emotional learning. Employing a classical conditioning paradigm in which faces were conditioned by pairing with an aversive tone (US), we compared responses evoked by conditioned (CS+) and nonconditioned (CS-) stimuli. Pairing 50% of the CS+ with the US enabled us to constrain our analysis to responses evoked by a CS+ not followed by a US. Differential evoked responses, related to conditioning, were found in the anterior cingulate and the anterior insula, regions with known involvement in emotional processing. Differential responses of the amygdalae were best characterized by a time by stimulus interaction indicating a rapid adaptation of CS+-specific responses in this region.
A genome-wide scan between normal human personality traits and a set of genetic markers at an average interval of 13 centimorgans was carried out in 758 pairs of siblings in 177 nuclear families of alcoholics. Personality traits were measured by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire. We detected significant linkage between the trait Harm Avoidance, a measure of anxiety proneness, and a locus on chromosome 8p21-23 that explained 38% of the trait variance. There was significant evidence of epistasis between the locus on 8p and others on chromosomes 18p, 20p, and 21q. These oligogenic interactions explained most of the variance in Harm Avoidance. There was suggestive evidence of epistasis in other personality traits. These results confirm the important influence of epistasis on human personality suggested by twin and adoption studies.
Much everyday behavior is implicitly guided by hypotheses about the world which are monitored and updated in the light of changing circumstances. The process of translating these hypotheses into behavior typically involves implementing choices, often based on incompletely specified information. The present study aimed at modeling these processes to determine the neural substrates of hypothesis testing and, in particular, how these are modulated by the requirement to make choices. We used positron emission tomography to study six right-handed volunteers performing an insoluble hypothesis testing task in which subjects attempted to identify a rule determining which of two black and white checkerboard stimuli was correct. This task was compared with a control task matched for perceptuomotor requirements, but involving no hypothesis testing. Both tasks were performed with or without a requirement to make a choice. Structures activated in association with hypothesis testing included the cerebellum, left anterior cingulate, right precuneus, right thalamus, and left inferior frontal gyrus. The requirement to choose a response was associated with activation of the left anterior cingulate and right lateral orbitofrontal cortex. A significant modulation of activation associated with hypothesis testing was observed in the anterior cingulate region that was also activated by making a choice. These findings are discussed in terms of the neural substrates of complex "executive" tasks. We argue that the precise cognitive parameters of such tasks, and specifically the requirement to implement decisions in actual behavior, are critical in determining the associated neural response.
Guessing is an important component of everyday cognition. The present study examined the neural substrates of guessing using a simple card-playing task in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Subjects were scanned under four conditions. In two, they were shown images of the back of a playing card and had to guess either the colour or the suit of the card. In the other two they were shown the face of a card and had to report either the colour or the suit. Guessing compared to reporting was associated with significant activations in lateral prefrontal cortex (right more than left), right orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, bilateral inferior parietal cortex and right thalamus. Increasing the guessing demands by manipulating the number of alternative outcomes was associated with activation of the left lateral and medial orbitofrontal cortex. These data suggest that while simple two choice guessing depends on an extensive neural system including regions of the right lateral prefrontal cortex, activation of orbitofrontal cortex increases as the probabilistic contingencies become more complex. Guessing thus involves not only systems implicated in working memory processes but also depends upon orbitofrontal cortex. This region is not typically activated in working memory tasks and its activation may reflect additional requirements of dealing with uncertainty.
Brain activity was studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) following thermal stimulation. Two groups (n = 6/group) of human male volunteers were given up to four noxious (46 degrees C) and four non-noxious (41 degrees C) stimuli. In the 46 degrees C experiment, positive signal changes were found in the frontal gyri, anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus, thalamus, motor cortex, somatosensory cortex (SI and SII), supplementary motor area, insula, and cerebellum. Low-level negative signal changes appeared in the amygdala and hypothalamus. All regions activated by 46 degrees C were also activated by 41 degrees C. However, except for SI and thalamus, significantly more activation was observed for the 46 degrees C stimulus. A significant attenuation of the signal change was observed by the third stimulus for the 46 degrees C, but not for 41 degrees C experiment. Similar findings were replicated in the second group. These fMRI findings specify differences between somatosensory and pain sensation and suggest a number of rich avenues for future research.
Anticipatory anxiety is a complex combination of a future-oriented cognitive state, negative affect, and autonomic arousal. A dual-task paradigm of anticipation of electric shocks and a motor-learning task was used to examine the changes in neural patterns of activation associated with modulation of the cognitive state in anxiety by a distracting motor task. We used positron emission tomography (PET) and 15O-water to measure regional cerebral blood flow (rcbf) in 10 healthy male volunteers. A 2x2 factorial design-(shock vs no shock) x (low vs high distraction) was used with three scans per condition. Twelve PET scans were performed on each subject. In six of these scans, subjects were given electric shocks. In all scans, subjects also simultaneously performed a motor repetition (low distraction) or learning (high distraction) task. Galvanic skin conductance (GSR), Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and self-report data were also collected. In comparisons between the shock and no-shock conditions, the main finding was of increased rcbf in the left insula (-38,8,8) (z = 4.85, P<0.05 corrected) and a homologous area in the right insula at a lower threshold (z =3.20, P = 0.001 uncorrected). Other areas activated were the right superior temporal sulcus, left fusiform, and left anterior cingulate. Using the STAI-state scores as a covariate of interest, significant correlations with rCBF were seen in the left orbitofrontal cortex, left insula, and left anterior cingulate cortex. There was no significant distraction effect as measured by the STAI, self-report, GSR response or interactional analysis of the PET data. These findings support the role of paralimbic structures as neural substrates of anticipatory anxiety. The failure to demonstrate behavioral and neurophysiological changes with the distractor task may reflect the modest increases in anxiety with the shock, the relatively simple distractor task, and small sample size.
The unified biosocial theory of personality, proposed by Cloninger, conceptualises personality as a combination of heritable, neurobiologically based traits (temperament dimensions), and traits reflecting sociocultural learning (character dimensions). The temperament dimensions are thought to be related to activity in specific central neurotransmitter systems. The relationship of the dimensions of the Temperament and Character Inventory, particularly harm avoidance (HA), and platelet 5-HT2 receptor sensitivity was investigated in a sample of undergraduate student volunteers (N = 49). Serotonin-receptor binding results in Ca2+ release from intracellular stores. The concentration of serotonin required to produce half maximal Ca2+ response (EC50) is indicative of 5-HT2 receptor sensitivity such that the lower the EC50 serotonin concentration, the greater the 5-HT2 receptor sensitivity. A significant inverse correlation was found between HA and EC50 (r = -0.644, P < 0.001). Self-directedness was also significantly correlated with EC50 (r = 0.391, P = 0.005). Novelty seeking, a personality trait similar to sensation seeking, was not significantly correlated with serotonin.
Recent imaging studies show that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is activated during a wide variety of paradigms, including guessing tasks, simple delayed matching tasks and sentence completion. We suggest that, as with other regions of the prefrontal cortex, activity in the OFC is most likely to be observed when there is insufficient information available to determine the appropriate course of action. In these circumstances the OFC, rather than other prefrontal regions, is more likely to be activated when the problem of what to do next is best solved by taking into account the likely reward value of stimuli and responses, rather than their identity or location. We suggest that selection of stimuli on the basis of their familiarity and responses on the basis of a feeling of 'rightness' are also examples of selection on the basis of reward value. Within the OFC, the lateral regions are more likely to be involved when the action selected requires the suppression of previously rewarded responses.
Since the discovery in the early 1990s that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used for functional imaging of the human brain, the technique has been used to examine the contribution of thalamic and cortical areas to the human pain experience. In a series of studies in this laboratory, functional MRI (fMRI) of noxious heat-, cold-, and median nerve stimulation-evoked activations demonstrated the involvement of the thalamus and multiple cortical areas in pain. The cortical areas identified included the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex (S1, S2), the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. The data also revealed a significant intersubject variability in the activation of any one of these regions, particularly during heat- and cold-evoked pain. These findings revealed the widespread cortical regions that are recruited by a noxious stimulus and provide clues to the neural circuitry of pain that undoubtedly include sensory, motor and cognitive components.
Studies investigating temperament traits in humans and their biological correlates have found high levels of novelty seeking (NS) linked with dopaminergic system changes, and particularly a deficit of dopamine transporter. Harm avoidance and reward dependence, on the other hand, appeared to be associated, respectively with serotonin and noradrenaline changes. In the present study, we have investigated the dopaminergic (DA), serotonergic (5-HT), and noradrenergic (NE) functions in healthy volunteers by challenging the monoamine systems with the DA agonist bromocriptine, the 5-HT agonist D-fenfluramine, and the NE agonist clonidine, respectively. Parallel to this investigation, we examined the temperament traits of our subjects by measuring NS, harm avoidance (HA) and reward dependence (RD) using the 'Three-dimensional Personality Questionnaire' (TPQ). The aims of the study were to see whether or not the monoamine functions were correlated with temperament traits. Bromocriptine challenge induced a significant GH increase and a significant suppression of PRL. D-fenfluramine test significantly increased PRL and cortisol plasma levels and Clonidine test induced a significant rise in GH values. NS scores showed a significant direct correlation with brom-stimulated GH values (r=0.426, P<0.05) and a significant inverse correlation with brom-inhibited PRL values (r=-0.498, P<0.01). HA scores correlated significantly with D-fen-stimulated PRL and CORT AUCs, (PRL: r=0.424, P<0.05; CORT: r=0. 595, P<0.005). RD scores correlated positively with clon-stimulated GH values (r=0.55; F=8.6; P<0.01) and negatively with brom-inhibited-PRL AUCs (r=-0.439, P<0.05). Our data support Cloninger theory concerning the biological correlates of temperamental traits, and evidence the link between the neuroendocrine responses to dynamic challenges and stable temperament features.
To make a direct comparison of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and major depression (MD) and a normal control group in terms of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) personality dimensions.
Additionally to 43 patients with primary OCD, 43 MD patients and 43 normal subjects who were matched against the OCD patients for sex and age filled out the TCI.
Compared to the controls, the OCD and MD patients scored significantly higher on harm avoidance and significantly lower on self-directedness and co-operativeness. The OCD patients scored significantly lower on novelty-seeking than the MD patients and the controls.
Whereas OCD and MD share similar personality deviations on harm avoidance, self-directedness and co-operativeness, OCD is distinguishable from MD in terms of low novelty-seeking. Low novelty-seeking may have a profound relationship to the specific aetiology of OCD.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine whether similar brain regions activate during noxious hot and cold stimulation. Six male subjects underwent whole brain fMRI during phasic delivery of noxious hot (46 degrees C) and noxious cold (5 degrees C) stimulation to the dorsum of the left hand. Mid-brain regions activated included thalamus, basal ganglia and insula. Cortical areas activated included cingulate, somatosensory, premotor and motor cortices, as well as prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex. Most regions activated bilaterally but with stronger activation contralateral to the stimulus. Noxious cold stimulation produced significantly increased volumes of activation compared to noxious heat in prefrontal areas only. Our results suggest a similar network of regions activate common to the perception of pain produced by either noxious hot or cold stimulation.