TY - JOUR
T1 - Neurocircuits underlying cognition-emotion interaction in a social decision making context
AU - Ho, S. Shaun
AU - Gonzalez, Richard D.
AU - Abelson, James L.
AU - Liberzon, Israel
N1 - Funding Information:
This study is supported by intramural funds at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor .
PY - 2012/11/1
Y1 - 2012/11/1
N2 - Decision making (DM) in the context of others often entails complex cognition-emotion interaction. While the literature suggests that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), striatum, and amygdala are involved in valuation-based DM and hippocampus in context processing, how these neural mechanisms subserve the integration of cognitive and emotional values in a social context remains unclear. In this study we addressed this gap by systematically manipulating cognition-emotion interaction in a social DM context, when the participants played a card game with a hypothetical opponent in a behavioral study (n = 73) and a functional magnetic-resonance-imaging study (n = 16). We observed that payoff-based behavioral choices were influenced by emotional values carried by face pictures and identified neurocircuits involved in cognitive valuation, emotional valuation, and concurrent cognition-emotion value integration. Specifically, while the vmPFC, amygdala, and ventral striatum were all involved in both cognitive and emotional domains of valuation, these regions played dissociable roles in social DM. The payoff-dependent responses in vmPFC and amygdala, but not ventral striatum, were moderated by the social context. Furthermore, the vmPFC, but not amygdala, not only encoded the opponent's gains as if self's losses, but also represented a "final common currency" during valuation-based decisions. The extent to which emotional input influenced choices was associated with the functional connectivity between the value-signaling amygdala and value integrating vmPFC, and also with the functional connectivity between the context-setting hippocampus and value-signaling amygdala and ventral striatum. These results identify brain pathways through which emotion shapes subjective values in a social DM context.
AB - Decision making (DM) in the context of others often entails complex cognition-emotion interaction. While the literature suggests that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), striatum, and amygdala are involved in valuation-based DM and hippocampus in context processing, how these neural mechanisms subserve the integration of cognitive and emotional values in a social context remains unclear. In this study we addressed this gap by systematically manipulating cognition-emotion interaction in a social DM context, when the participants played a card game with a hypothetical opponent in a behavioral study (n = 73) and a functional magnetic-resonance-imaging study (n = 16). We observed that payoff-based behavioral choices were influenced by emotional values carried by face pictures and identified neurocircuits involved in cognitive valuation, emotional valuation, and concurrent cognition-emotion value integration. Specifically, while the vmPFC, amygdala, and ventral striatum were all involved in both cognitive and emotional domains of valuation, these regions played dissociable roles in social DM. The payoff-dependent responses in vmPFC and amygdala, but not ventral striatum, were moderated by the social context. Furthermore, the vmPFC, but not amygdala, not only encoded the opponent's gains as if self's losses, but also represented a "final common currency" during valuation-based decisions. The extent to which emotional input influenced choices was associated with the functional connectivity between the value-signaling amygdala and value integrating vmPFC, and also with the functional connectivity between the context-setting hippocampus and value-signaling amygdala and ventral striatum. These results identify brain pathways through which emotion shapes subjective values in a social DM context.
KW - Amygdala
KW - Cognition-emotion interaction
KW - FMRI
KW - Hippocampus
KW - Social decision making
KW - Ventral striatum
KW - Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.07.017
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.07.017
M3 - Article
C2 - 22813951
AN - SCOPUS:84865567759
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 63
SP - 843
EP - 857
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 2
ER -