Distinct and Overlapping Brain Areas Engaged during Value-Based, Mathematical, and Emotional Decision Processing

Abstract

When comparing between the values of different choices, human beings can rely on either more cognitive processes, such as using mathematical computation, or more affective processes, such as using emotion. However, the neural correlates of how these two types of processes operate during value-based decision-making remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the extent to which neural regions engaged during value-based decision-making overlap with those engaged during mathematical and emotional processing in a within-subject manner. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, participants viewed stimuli that always consisted of numbers and emotional faces that depicted two choices. Across tasks, participants decided between the two choices based on the expected value of the numbers, a mathematical result of the numbers, or the emotional face stimuli. We found that all three tasks commonly involved various cortical areas including frontal, parietal, motor, somatosensory, and visual regions. Critically, the mathematical task shared common areas with the value but not emotion task in bilateral striatum. Although the emotion task overlapped with the value task in parietal, motor, and sensory areas, the mathematical task also evoked responses in other areas within these same cortical structures. Minimal areas were uniquely engaged for the value task apart from the other two tasks. The emotion task elicited a more expansive area of neural activity whereas value and mathematical task responses were in more focal regions. Whole-brain spatial correlation analysis showed that valuative processing engaged functional brain responses more similarly to mathematical processing than emotional processing. While decisions on expected value entail both mathematical and emotional processing regions, mathematical processes have a more prominent contribution particularly in subcortical processes.

Value network engagement and effects of memory-related processing during encoding and retrieval of value

“…Our findings showed that neural engagement of striatal and posterior parietal regions was similar across valuation phases, while highlighting distinctive reliance on the precuneus and salience network regions during value retrieval. In accordance with our first prediction, results from the value-encoding phase indicated recruitment of key fronto-striatal regions commonly implicated in valuation paradigms (see Hsu & Goh, 2016;Kable & Glimcher, 2009;Levy & Glimcher, 2012;Rangel, Camerer, & Montague, 2008;Rushworth et al, 2011 for review), particularly the striatal caudate nucleus, in addition to the left superior parietal lobule.…”

Structural and functional changes in the somatosensory cortex in euthymic females with bipolar disorder

“…Zhou et al (2014) evaluated the risk propensity in males and females using Rs-FC and found that general risk propensity was different between the sexes, with the right secondary somatosensory cortex being involved in risk processing in women only (Zhou et al, 2014). The somatosensory cortex was also found to be involved in decision-making processes when using emotional and value-based tasks compared to a mathematical approach (Hsu and Goh, 2016). A recent neuroimaging meta-analysis examined the connection between affective responses through sensory modalities.…”

Brain‐Anatomy Differences in the Commission of Reversal Errors during Algebraic Word Problem Solving

“…Moreover, in different fMRI studies (Amalric & Dehaene, 2016; Hsu & Goh, 2016), a bilateral activation of the putamen was found after performing mathematical tasks, which leads us to think that the putamen is an important structure in performing mathematical tasks. The study by Arsalidou and Taylor (2011) showed the significant contributions of the left putamen on number tasks.…”