Lucky Rhythms in Orbitofrontal Cortex Bias Gambling Decisions in Humans.
It is well established that emotions influence our decisions, yet the neural basis of this biasing effect is not well understood. Here we directly recorded local field potentials from the OrbitoFrontal Cortex (OFC) in five human subjects performing a financial decision-making task. We observed a striking increase in gamma-band (36-50 Hz) oscillatory activity that reflected subjects' decisions to make riskier choices. Additionally, these gamma rhythms were linked back to mismatched expectations or "luck" occurring in past trials. Specifically, when a subject expected to win but lost, the trial was defined as "unlucky" and when the subject expected to lose but won, the trial was defined as "lucky". Finally, a fading memory model of luck correlated to an objective measure of emotion, heart rate variability. Our findings suggest OFC may play a pivotal role in processing a subject's internal (emotional) state during financial decision-making, a particularly interesting result in light of the more recent "cognitive map" theory of OFC function.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
Pierre
P
Sacré
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
Matthew S D
MS
Kerr
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
Kevin
K
Kahn
Center for Epilepsy, Neurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Jorge
J
Gonzalez-Martinez
Center for Epilepsy, Neurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Juan
J
Bulacio
Department of Neuroscience, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Hyun-Joo
HJ
Park
Department of Neuroscience, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Matthew A
MA
Johnson
Center for Epilepsy, Neurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Susan
S
Thompson
Department of Neuroscience, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Jaes
J
Jones
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
Vikram S
VS
Chib
Department of Neuroscience, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.|Center for Neurological Restoration, Neurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
John T
JT
Gale
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
Sridevi V
SV
Sarma
D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000503:physiopathology*; D065818:Gamma Rhythm; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*