Author:
Tobler Philippe N.,O'Doherty John P.,Dolan Raymond J.,Schultz Wolfram
Abstract
When deciding between different options, individuals are guided by the expected (mean) value of the different outcomes and by the associated degrees of uncertainty. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain activations coding the key decision parameters of expected value (magnitude and probability) separately from uncertainty (statistical variance) of monetary rewards. Participants discriminated behaviorally between stimuli associated with different expected values and uncertainty. Stimuli associated with higher expected values elicited monotonically increasing activations in distinct regions of the striatum, irrespective of different combinations of magnitude and probability. Stimuli associated with higher uncertainty (variance) elicited increasing activations in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Uncertainty-related activations covaried with individual risk aversion in lateral orbitofrontal regions and risk-seeking in more medial areas. Furthermore, activations in expected value-coding regions in prefrontal cortex covaried differentially with uncertainty depending on risk attitudes of individual participants, suggesting that separate prefrontal regions are involved in risk aversion and seeking. These data demonstrate the distinct coding in key reward structures of the two basic and crucial decision parameters, expected value, and uncertainty.
Publisher
American Physiological Society
Subject
Physiology,General Neuroscience
Cited by
388 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献