Decision making and affective processing

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The efficacy of decision making is often measured by whether or not it leads to rewarding outcomes. Over[unreadable] the past decade, separate research programs have identified separate brain systems that contribute to[unreadable] decision making and to the evaluation of rewards. While the individuation of functionally specific regions[unreadable] within these systems remains an active and ongoing component of cognitive neuroscience, relatively little[unreadable] work has been devoted toward elucidating their interactions. This Project will investigate how reward[unreadable] information alters the functional properties of brain systems for decision making, through a combination of[unreadable] functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), intracranial electrophysiological, and behavioral studies.[unreadable] This Project has four specific aims. First, it will determine the consequences of delivery of punctate monetary[unreadable] rewards upon the subsequent activation of brain systems underlying decision making. The experiments will[unreadable] test the hypothesis that rewards have a transient inhibitory effect upon lateral prefrontal regions associated[unreadable] with decision making, through comparison of the effects of performance-dependent and performance-independent[unreadable] rewards with those of other affective stimuli. Second, it will investigate how decision makers[unreadable] incorporate or ignore external recommendations that confirm or refute their prior decisions through[unreadable] experiments that systematically adjust the predictiveness of recommendations in obtaining rewarding[unreadable] decision outcomes. Key regions for the analysis include frontopolar, orbitofrontal and cingulate areas. Third,[unreadable] we will study how decision makers regulate tradeoffs between two factors that are often in opposition: risk[unreadable] and reward. In many situations, by delaying judgment, people pay opportunity costs (e.g., by passing up[unreadable] opportunities for large rewards) in order to make more accurate and confident decisions. The experiments[unreadable] will evaluate how observers manage these costs with insular and orbitofrontal regions targeted as key sites.[unreadable] The fourth and final aim will evaluate the relative timing and spatial specificity of reward effects upon[unreadable] prefrontal systems through the use of intracranial electrophysiology. Its experiments will take advantage of[unreadable] the improved temporal resolution of electrophysiology to characterize the relative timing of activation[unreadable] throughout prefrontal cortex associated with decisions about rewards. They will also provide new data about[unreadable] the function of orbitofrontal cortex, an area often difficult to image using fMRI.[unreadable] These experiments will have important consequences for the understanding of how people make decisions,[unreadable] set goals, and determine preferences among stimuli. A better understanding of these processes will lead to[unreadable] further improvements in clinical remediation of neurological and psychiatric disorders characterized by[unreadable] impairments in executive function, behavioral selection, or stimulus valuation (e.g., frontal lobe damage,[unreadable] schizophrenia. Parkinson's disease).