AnIntroductiontoFunctionalMRI.pptVIP

The Neural Representation of Decision-Making under Uncertainty Scott Huettel Psychology Neuroscience Duke University Outline of the Talk Uncertainty defined Case study: Ambiguity Contributions of lateral prefrontal, parietal cortex? Contributions of orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala? Discussion: What should neuroscience seek? Ubiquitous Risk Signals Ambiguity… in Lateral Prefrontal Cortex? Ambiguity… in Orbitofrontal Cortex? Evidence from Cognitive Neuroscience Lateral prefrontal cortex Important for establishing rules for behavior Implicated in reasoning, response selection Orbitofrontal cortex Important for learning about (aversive) stimuli Implicated in inhibition of behavior Interim Take-Home MessageConcepts from decision science are unlikely to reflect unitary psychological constructs nor single neural modules Conditioning of Risk and Ambiguity Ventral PFC Damage Increases Risk Seeking Ambiguity effects in orbital PFC Tasks (3): Gambles, knowledge, opponent Activation preceded decision (slow) Aversion led to increased activation Subject sample: very ambiguity averse Ambiguity effects in lateral PFC Task (1): Gambles Activation coincident with decision (fast) Aversion led to decreased activation Subject sample: ambiguity neutral A Lesson from Psychology… for Neuroeconomics? “A concept that is synonymous with a single operation is nothing more than a restatement of an experimental result. But a concept that arises as a consequence of converging operations has a reality that is independent of any single experimental observation. “But before we can get convergence, we must introduce variation in our experimental procedures. … Stabilizing on a few techniques… [is] utterly self-defeating… because it completely drops the critical part from critical realism.” The Processing of Information and Structure p. 187 Acknowledgments Support NIMH, NINDS, NIA Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @ Decision Neuroscience