Julian Macoveanu1,2, Jon Wegener1,2, Arnold Skimminge1, Bettina Hornboll1,2, Rebecca Elliott3, Hartwig Siebner1,2, Olaf B. Paulson1,2, James B. Rowe2,4
1Danish research center for MR, Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre, Denmark; 2Center for Integrated Molecular Brain Imaging, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 3Neuroscience and Psychiatry Unit, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; 4Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
When making a decision, the risk can be expressed as the probability of wining vs. losing, or the outcome winnings vs. losses. We used a novel gambling task with 30 subjects in fMRI to study the different roles of fronto-striatal systems in the integration of probability vs. outcome. The probability of winning correlated with activity in the rostral Ventral Striatum (VS), dorsal anterior-cingulate (ACC) and orbitofrontal cortex. The magnitude of winnings correlated with caudal-VS and subgenual-ACC activity. Conclusion: separate regions of VS and ACC are sensitive to different aspects of risk, even when the expected utility of choices is equated.