( esearchers divided that anticipatory pe...)Brain's 'gambling circuitry' identified

esearchers divided that anticipatory period into two subperiods. During a one second period immediately after the first card was displayed, subjects were concentrating on expected reward, theorized the researchers; and in the following six seconds before the second card, they were assessing the risk revealed by the first card. The researchers based this approach on studies by other researchers of such processes in primates.

Quartz and colleagues found they could distinguish brain regions that specifically responded to either reward expectation or risk. Importantly, these areas showed activity that increased with the level of expected reward and perceived risk. The researchers found that the activation related to expected reward was immediate, while the activation related to risk was delayed.

These regions were part of the brain circuitry governed by the neurotransmitter dopamine that is also involved in learning, motivation, and salience. However, emphasized the researchers, the design of their gambling task and analysis of their data ruled out involvement of these functions, meaning that they had, indeed, isolated the "gambling" function of these regions.

Of the practical implications of their findings, the researchers wrote that "pathological behaviors ranging from addiction to gambling, as well as a variety of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, are partially characterized by risk taking. To date, it is unknown whether such pathological decision making under risk is due to misperception of risk or disruptions in cognitive processes, such as learning, planning, and choice.

"For example, a bipolar subject during a manic episode may invest in a risky business proposition either because they misperceive the risk to be lower than it actually is, or because they accurately perceive the risk to be high but may have impaired learning, attentional, working memory, or choice processes."

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Source:Cell Press

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