Neural Correlates of Successful and Unsuccessful Strategical Mechanisms Involved in Uncertain Decision-Making

Abstract

The ability to develop successful long-term strategies in uncertain situations relies on complex neural mechanisms. Although lesion studies have shown some of the mechanisms involved, it is still unknown why some healthy subjects are able to make the right decision whereas others are not. The aim of our study was to investigate neurophysiological differences underlying this ability to develop a successful strategy in a group of healthy subjects playing a monetary card game called the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). In this task, subjects have to win and earn money by choosing between four decks of cards, two were advantageous in the long term and two disadvantageous. Twenty healthy right-handed subjects performed the IGT while their cerebral activity was recorded by electroencephalography. Based on their behavioral performances, two groups of subjects could clearly be distinguished: one who selected the good decks and thus succeeded in developing a Favorable strategy (9 subjects) and one who remained Undecided (11 subjects). No neural difference was found between each group before the selection of a deck, but in both groups a greater negativity was found emerging from the right superior frontal gyrus 600 ms before a disadvantageous selection. During the processing of the feedback, an attenuation of the P200 and P300 waveforms was found for the Undecided group, and a P300 originating from the medial frontal gyrus was found in response to a loss only in the Favorable group. Our results suggest that undecided subjects are hyposensitive to the valence of the cards during gambling, which affects the feedback processing.

Conceptual Knowledge Influences Decision Making Differently in Individuals with High or Low Cognitive Flexibility: An ERP Study

“…The participants in the high group displayed greater negativity toward passing, whereas those in the low group displayed greater negativity toward playing. The results for the high group participants during the post-knowledge stage are consistent with previous studies [ 19 , 26 , 34 ]. In one of these studies, the larger DPN amplitude was caused by feelings of unease and avoidance behavior [ 26 ].…”

Event-Related Potentials in Relation to Risk-Taking: A Systematic Review

“…One study presented neutral feedback (i.e., no gains or losses) in addition to gain and loss feedback, and reported larger P3 amplitudes for gains compared to neutral feedback (Azcárraga-Guirola et al, 2017 ). Another study categorized participants into two groups: favorable (participants who showed a pattern of advantageous deck selection) and undecided (participants who did not show a pattern of advantageous deck selection), and reported the favorable group to show smaller P3 amplitudes for gain outcomes, whilst P3 gain/loss differences were not identified in the undecided group (Giustiniani et al, 2015 ). Two studies found larger P3 amplitudes in response to feedback of larger magnitude gains and losses compared to smaller magnitude outcomes (Cui et al, 2013 ; Balconi et al, 2015 ).…”

Modeling decision-making under uncertainty: a direct comparison study between human and mouse gambling data

“…The goal of this study was to directly compare DM under uncertainty between humans and mice using IGT adaptations according to the litterature 9,12,25 . To reduce conceptual and methodological differences between the tasks, we controlled factors known to interfere with the results such as sex differences and the presence of instructions, especially in humans.…”

“…Based upon recent literature addressing mouse gambling tasks (mGT) validity 12,16,19,20,24 , we forecasted a good face validity of our animal model with similar overall performances regarding the human population 25 . To check for the existence of similar variability in choice strategies among species, we then compared the stratification of both populations according to endpoint performances.…”

“…Humans. Forty healthy right-handed subjects, all male (mean age ± SEM = 24.7 ± 5.1; range [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], were involved in the study. None of them reported previous medical history of psychiatric disorders, substance or alcohol abuse, neurological diseases, traumatic brain injury or stroke, and none did report taking any medication.…”