( ts. One subject for example needed th...)UCLA: How does your brain respond when you think about gambling or taking risks?

"Looking at how your brain responds to potential gains versus potential losses, we can predict how risk-averse you are going to be in your choices," said study co-author Russell Poldrack, UCLA associate professor of psychology, who holds UCLA's Wendell Jeffrey and Bernice Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience. "Brain activity predicts behavior."

"Individual differences in brain activity correspond very closely to individual differences in participants' actual choices," said co-author Craig Fox, an associate professor of policy at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and an associate professor of psychology. "The people who show much more neural sensitivity to losses relative to gains are the same people who are very reluctant to gamble unless they are offered extremely favorable gambles. The people who are about as sensitive to losses as gains neurologically are the ones who are more willing to gamble."

Thinking about the possibility of winning money turns on some of the same areas of the brain that are activated when people take cocaine, eat chocolate or look at a beautiful face, Poldrack said.

The researchers studied which parts of the brain became more active or less active as the amount of money participants could win or lose increased. Regions that become more active as the amount increases are considered "reward centers" in the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum, Poldrack said.

The researchers also found that reward centers in the brain respond not only when we actually receive rewards but also when we make decisions about potential rewards, and that when we make decisions, the reward circuitry in the brain is more sensitive to possible loss
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Source:University of California - Los Angeles