Does Decision-Making during Gambling Involve Primary Roles for the Pre-Frontal Cortex and Anterior Cingulate Cortex

Abstract

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have implicated multiple brain regions as being involved in the complex process of decision-making, including gambling. While decision-making is a key aspect of everyday life, the consequences of poor decision-making can be greatly magnified during gambling. Thus, it is useful to review current evidence regarding the brain regions involved in gambling. To date, there have been three tasks that have been frequently used to examine the paradigm of decision-making during gambling: the Iowa Gambling Task, the Game of Dice Task, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. There are four brain regions that are most consistently involved, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and anterior cingulate cortex. Interestingly, we have recently found that disobedience to an authority figure in a gambling task also involves activation in the amygdala, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and anterior insula. Taken together, we propose that decision-making in the context of gambling is primarily determined in the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). While multiple other brain regions are likely involved, the primacy of the PFC and ACC in decision-making during gambling behaviours should be more fully recognized.