Human Orbital Prefrontal Function

University Of California Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to precisely characterize the neural and cognitive processes mediated by the orbital prefrontal cortex (PFC) that support emotional influence on decisions and judgments. Lesion-patient studies constitute the bulk of previous research examining orbital PFC involvement in interactions between emotion and cognition such as making decisions or judgments. These studies have suggested that orbital PFC is important for using emotional information to create or access knowledge that is subsequently useful for making decisions and judgments. However, it has been difficult to draw precise conclusions about orbital PFC activity in relation to emotional influences on decisions and judgments for several reasons. First, dominant theories of orbital PFC function are problematic or too narrow and do not account for emotion-cognition interactions that have been well established in two decades of behavioral research. Second, functional neuroimaging studies in this domain have not been designed to sufficiently complement lesion studies. Instead of examining the interplay between cognition and emotion, functional neuroimaging studies have mostly examined orbital PFC activity in relation to either cognition (e.g., decision making vs. guessing) or emotion (i.e., presence vs. absence of punishment and reward). The most fruitful next step is to conduct functional neuroimaging studies of orbital PFC activity in relation to emotional influences on decisions and judgments