Brain network connectivity underlying decisions between the "lesser of two evils"
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Psychiatry and Psychology, Statistics
- Keywords
- decision making, mPFC, graph theory, fMRI, aversive, framing effects, preferences, striatum, insula, hippocampus
- Copyright
- © 2018 Mills-Finnerty et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Brain network connectivity underlying decisions between the "lesser of two evils" PeerJ Preprints 6:e3340v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3340v2
Abstract
In daily life we are often forced to choose between the “lesser of two evils,” yet there remains limited understanding of how the brain encodes choices between aversive stimuli, particularly choices involving hypothetical futures. We tested how choice framing affects brain activity and network connectivity by having participants make choices about individualized, aversive, hypothetical stimuli (i.e. illnesses, car accidents, etc.) under approach and avoidance frames (“which would you rather have/avoid”) during fMRI scanning. We tested whether limbic and frontal regions show patterns of signal intensity and network connectivity that differed by frame, and compared this to response to similar appetitive choices involving appetitive preferences (i.e. hobbies, vacation destinations). We predicted that regions such as the insula, amgydala, and striatum would respond differently to approach vs. avoidance choices during aversive hypothetical choices. We identified activations for both choice frames in areas broadly associated with decision making, including the putamen, insula, and anterior cingulate, as well as deactivations in areas shown to be sensitive to valence, including the amygdala, insula, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus. Connectivity between brain regions differed based on choice frame, with greater connectivity among deactive regions including the amygdala, insula, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during avoidance frames compared to approach frames. These differences suggest that approach and avoidance frames lead to different behavioral and brain network response when deciding which of two evils are the lesser.
Author Comment
Analyses comparing the appetitive and aversive framing BOLD activation were updated for this manuscript, and are summarized in Figure 4. This manuscript is currently under peer review.