The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in reward valuation and future thinking during intertemporal choice

eLife

Jenkin Mok¹  Flavia De Luca¹  Joel Myerson²  Leonard Green³  Carl Craver³  Shayna Rosenbaum⁴  Violetta Knyagnytska⁵  Francesca Bianconi⁵  Elisa Ciaramelli⁶  Donna Kwan⁶ 

[1] Centro studi e ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Bologna, Cesena, Italy;Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada;Centro studi e ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Bologna, Cesena, Italy;Department of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis, United States;Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada;Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy;

关键词: delay discounting;    episodic future thinking;    ventromedial prefrontal cortex;    decision making;    reward;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.67387

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Intertemporal choices require trade-offs between short-term and long-term outcomes. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) damage causes steep discounting of future rewards (delay discounting [DD]) and impoverished episodic future thinking (EFT). The role of vmPFC in reward valuation, EFT, and their interaction during intertemporal choice is still unclear. Here, 12 patients with lesions to vmPFC and 41 healthy controls chose between smaller-immediate and larger-delayed hypothetical monetary rewards while we manipulated reward magnitude and the availability of EFT cues. In the EFT condition, participants imagined personal events to occur at the delays associated with the larger-delayed rewards. We found that DD was steeper in vmPFC patients compared to controls, and not modulated by reward magnitude. However, EFT cues downregulated DD in vmPFC patients as well as controls. These findings indicate that vmPFC integrity is critical for the valuation of (future) rewards, but not to instill EFT in intertemporal choice.

【 授权许可】

Unknown