Posterior parietal cortex is causally involved in reward valuation but not probability weighting during risky choice

Abstract

This study provides evidence that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is causally involved in risky decision making via the processing of reward values but not reward probabilities. In the within-group experimental design, participants performed a binary lottery choice task following transcranial magnetic stimulation of the right PPC, left PPC and a right PPC sham (placebo) stimulation. Both, mean-variance and the prospect theory approach to risky choice showed that the PPC stimulation changed participants' preferences towards greater risk aversion compared to sham. On the behavioral level, after the PPC stimulation the likelihood of choosing a safer option became more sensitive to the difference in standard deviations between lotteries, compared to sham, indicating greater risk avoidance within the mean-variance framework. We also estimated the shift in prospect theory parameters of risk preferences after PPC stimulation. The hierarchical Bayesian approach showed moderate evidence (BF = 7.44 and 5.41 for right and left PPC respectively) for a credible change in risk aversion parameter towards lower marginal reward value (and, hence, lower risk tolerance), while no credible change in probability weighting was observed. Additionally, we observed anecdotal evidence (BF = 2.9) for a credible increase in the consistency of responses after the left PPC stimulation compared to sham.