title: Individual differences in intrinsic brain connectivity predict decision strategy.
abstract: When humans are provided with ample time to make a decision, individual differences in strategy emerge. Using an adaptation of a well-studied decision making paradigm, motion direction discrimination, we probed the neural basis of individual differences in strategy. We tested whether strategies emerged from moment-to-moment reconfiguration of functional brain networks involved in decision making with task-evoked functional MRI (fMRI) and whether intrinsic properties of functional brain networks, measured at rest with functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), were associated with strategy use. We found that human participants reliably selected one of two strategies across 2 days of task performance, either continuously accumulating evidence or waiting for task difficulty to decrease. Individual differences in decision strategy were predicted both by the degree of task-evoked activation of decision-related brain regions and by the strength of pretask correlated spontaneous brain activity. These results suggest that spontaneous brain activity constrains strategy selection on perceptual decisions.
authors.affiliation: Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland kelly.barnes@bcm.edu.
authors.forename: Kelly Anne
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.affiliation: Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Kevin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Plitt
authors.affiliation: Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012146:Rest; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: decision making; fMRI; fcMRI; individual differences; strategy