Abstract
We test the emerging hypothesis that prefrontal cortical mechanisms involved in non-veridical decision making do not overlap with those of veridical decision making. Healthy female subjects performed an experimental task assessing free choice, agent-centered decision making (The Cognitive Bias Task) and a veridical control task related to visuospatial working memory (the Moving Spot Task). Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) using 1 Hz and 10 Hz (intermittent) rTMS and sham protocols. Both 1 Hz and 10 Hz stimulation of the DLPFC triggered a shift towards a more context-independent, internal representations driven non-veridical selection bias. A significantly reduced preference for choosing objects based on similarity was detected, following both 1 Hz and 10 Hz treatment of the right as well as 1 Hz rTMS of the left DLPFC. 1 Hz rTMS treatment of the right DLPFC also triggered a significant improvement in visuospatial working memory performance on the veridical task. The effects induced by prefrontal TMS mimicked those of posterior lesions, suggesting that prefrontal stimulation influenced neuronal activity in remote cortical regions interconnected with the stimulation site via longitudinal fasciculi.
Highlights
In most cases decision making involves a degree of subjectivity, allowing personal preference and subjective choice to guide the selection of one option over another
To establish the specificity of repetitive TMS (rTMS) modulation effects to non-veridical decision making, we introduced a veridical, visuospatial working memory task – the Moving Spot Task (MST) – to be used simultaneously with Cognitive Bias Task (CBT) under all conditions serving the function of a control task
The Friedman test results (χ24=10.701; P=0.030) and subsequent post hoc Wilcoxon Signed‐rank test results indicated significant changes in non‐veridical decision-making preferences following treatments: 1) 1 Hz rTMS to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (Z=−2.193; P=0.028); 2) 1 Hz rTMS to the right DLPFC (Z=−2.095; P=0.036); and 3) 10 Hz rTMS to the left DLPFC (Z=−2.041; P=0.041) as indicated by CBT unconverted score changes compared to the baseline condition (Fig. 3)
Summary
In most cases decision making involves a degree of subjectivity, allowing personal preference and subjective choice to guide the selection of one option over another. Researchers acknowledge the complexity of decision making by treating it as a complex function that involves multiple component processes (Krawczyk 2002, Fellows 2004). Other models postulate a segregation based on the nature of the decision being made, suggesting a discrimination between “veridical” decisions, where an unequivocally correct, albeit not always obvious answer to a problem exists, and “non‐veridical”, adaptive decisions, where personal priorities and preferences guide the agent in an ambiguous situation where multiple alternatives exist in solution to a given problem (Goldberg et al 1994, Bechara et al 1994)
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