Distinct brain codings of reward value and risk attitude.

When deciding between different options, individuals are guided by the expected (mean) value of the different outcomes and by the associated degrees of uncertainty. Tobler et al. have used used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain activations coding the key decision parameters of expected value (magnitude and probability) separately from uncertainty (statistical variance) of monetary rewards. Participants discriminated behaviorally between stimuli associated with different expected values and uncertainty. Stimuli associated with higher expected values elicited monotonically increasing activations in distinct regions of the striatum, irrespective of different combinations of magnitude and probability.


Figure: Coding of magnitude, probability and expected value in lateral prefrontal cortex. Common and distinct increases in activation to stimuli associated with increasing reward magnitude, probability and expected value as indicated by different colors.

Stimuli associated with higher uncertainty (variance) elicited increasing activations in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Uncertainty-related activations covaried with individual risk aversion in lateral orbitofrontal regions and risk-seeking in more medial areas.


Figure: Differential coding of reward uncertainty but not expected value in lateral orbitofrontal cortex.

Furthermore, activations in expected value-coding regions in prefrontal cortex covaried differentially with uncertainty depending on risk attitudes of individual participants, suggesting that separate prefrontal regions are involved in risk aversion and seeking. These data demonstrate the distinct coding in key reward structures of the two basic and crucial decision parameters, expected value, and uncertainty.