Reassessing the gut–cognition link: Exploring psychophysiological mechanisms of risky decision-making.

Subjective value-weights on benefit and risk in human neurocomputation changes between conservative and risky decision-making.

Neural mechanisms of risky decision-making and reward response in adolescent onset cannabis use disorder

BackgroundPatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show greater loss sensitivity and higher delayed discounting rates during decision making, but findings regarding their risk preferences are inconsistent. Computational behavioral modeling provides a promising tool for the investigation of these latent factors underlying the decision-making behaviors.ObjectivesConduct both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses to identify patterns and changes in risky decision-making over time, examine correlations between traditional CGT performance indicators and cognitive modeling parameters to better understand the underlying mechanisms of decision-making, and separately explore participants’ reward and loss sensitivities.MethodsAt baseline, 52 patients with MDD and 66 healthy controls (HCs) underwent psychometric assessment and performed the Cambridge gambling task (CGT) characterizing risky decision-making behavior. After 8 weeks of treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, the patient group underwent assessment and performed the CGT again. Applying a cumulative model to the trial-by-trial behavioral data of the CGT, we also compared the latent factors between groups, including probability distortion, color bias, utility/loss sensitivity, delayed reward discounting and choice consistency.ResultsPatients with MDD had more depressive symptoms and anhedonia than did HCs. MDD group exhibited both greater delayed reward discounting and lower choice consistency than HCs. After the treatment, MDD group had both decreased loss sensitivity and color choice bias. Controlling for depressive symptoms, a deficit in consummatory pleasure with motivational drive was associated with greater delayed reward discounting at baseline in MDD group.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that patients with MDD have deficits in reward function (higher delayed reward discounting and lower risk adjustment) at baseline. With antidepressant treatment, loss sensitivity decreased while impairment in reward function persists, and these patients tend to make more risky choices after treatment.Trial registrationThe registration number is ChiCTR2000031931 and date of registration is April 15th 2020.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-025-07412-z.

In risky decision making, whether decision makers follow an expectation rule as hypothesised by mainstream theories is a compelling question. To tackle this question and enrich our knowledge of the underlying mechanism of risky decision making, we developed a series of new experimental paradigms that directly examined the computation processes to systematically investigate the process of risky decision making and explore the boundary condition of expectation rule over the course of a decade. In this article, we introduce these methods and review behavioural, eye-tracking, event-related potential, and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that employed these methods. Results of these studies consistently showed that decision makers in the single-application condition did not perform the weighting and summing process assumed by the expectation rule. Moreover, decision makers were inclined to adopt a non-compensatory strategy, such as a heuristic one, in risky decision making. Furthermore, results indicated that the expectation rule was only applicable for conditions that involved decisions applied to numerous events (multiple applications) or to people (everyone). The findings indicated that using an index based on expected value to prescribe human risk preferences appears to be an artificial or false index of risk preference, and emphasised a new methodological direction for risky decision-making research.

Modeling risky decision-making in nonhuman animals: shared core features

Effects of outcome on the covariance between risk level and brain activity in adolescents with internet gaming disorder

Because adolescence is a period of heightened exploration of new behaviors, there is a natural increase in risk taking including initial use of alcohol and marijuana. In order to better understand potential differences in neurocognitive functioning among adolescents who use drugs, the current study aimed to identify the neural substrates of risky decision making that differ among adolescents whoare primary users of alcohol or marijuana, primary users of both alcohol and marijuana, and controls who report primary use of neither drug. Participants completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Comparison of brain activation during risky decisions versus non-risky decisions across all subjects revealed greater response to risky decisions in dorsal anterior cinguate cortex (dACC), anterior insula, ventral striatum, and lateral prefrontal cortex. Group comparisons across non-using controls, primary marijuana, primary alcohol, and alcohol and marijuana users revealed several notable differences in the recruitment of brain regions. Adolescents who use both alcohol and marijauna show decreased response during risky decision making compared to controls in insula, striatum, and thalamus, and reduced differentiation of increasing risk in dACC, insula, striatum, and superior parietal lobe compared to controls. These results provide evidence of differential engagement of risky decision making circuits among adolescents with varying levels of alcohol and marijuana use, and may provide useful targets for longitudinal studies that explicitly address causality of these differences.

BackgroundAdolescents with externalizing (EXT) disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder—characterized by impulsivity and rule-breaking, are at elevated risk for substance use disorders (SUDs), partly due to deficits in risky decision-making. Sex differences in this association are understudied. Neuroimaging research shows females and males with EXT disorders exhibit different brain activation patterns during risky decisions. This study will explore how these sex differences relate to the development of problematic substance use in youth with EXT disorders.MethodA total of 115 (78 males, 37 females) drug-naive adolescents with EXT psychopathology performed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) during magnetic resonance imaging to assess risky decision-making brain activation. Then, participants and their guardians completed questionnaires at 6-month intervals to assess problematic substance use. Statistical analyses evaluated sex differences in brain activation—both parametrically modulated and unmodulated—within a priori-selected regions associated with risky decision-making and problematic substance use, using Cox proportional hazards models.ResultsHigher modulated brain activation (as explosion probability increased) during the choice phase contrast, Choose Inflate—Choose Win, was associated with a lower hazard of problematic substance use in the right nucleus accumbens (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 0.68, 95% CI [0.49, 0.94], p = 0.01). This association was significant for females, but not for males, with the hazard ratios being significantly different between sexes. In the right nucleus accumbens, higher unmodulated choice phase activation in males was associated with lower hazard of problematic substance use (HR = 0.60, 95% CI [0.37, 0.97], p = 0.03); and in the right subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, higher unmodulated activation in this same contrast in females was associated with a lower hazard of problematic substance use [HR = 0.49, 95% CI (0.24, 0.97), p = 0.03].ConclusionThis study offers insight into sex differences in risky decision-making neural mechanisms and SUD risk among youth with EXT disorders. Our findings suggest typical risk signaling in the reward-processing network (nucleus accumbens and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex) may protect against substance use, particularly in females with EXT disorders. These findings emphasize the need for further sex-specific research and interventions for youth with EXT disorders.

Features of structure of intelligence and interrelation with decision-making strategy in the children and teenagers allow to judge formation of cogitative activity and to carry out the directed influence of the educational environment on formation of intellectual functions of school students. Results of research of psycho-physiological mechanisms of behavioral reaction are presented in article in the free, probabilistic and determined environments on the basis of the analysis of interrelations of verbal and nonverbal intelligence with features of decision-making by children and teenagers. The conducted research revealed in the school students of 7-18 years bigger quantity of interrelations of parameters of decision-making from a verbal component of intelligence. At each age stage features of structural interrelations of intelligence with decision-making parameters are revealed. Research showed that success of performance of arithmetic tasks hasn’t practically the interrelations with decision-making strategy, and, since 11-12 years, is deficiental function in studied correlation galaxies. At graduates of school of interrelation of high-speed opportunities of rechemyslitelny activity with mechanisms of decision-making are noted only in free and probabilistic environments. Throughout all studied age period the smallest quantity of interrelations of components of structure of intelligence with parameters of decision-making is revealed in the conditions of the stochastic environment.

Background and aimsThe intertemporal and risk decision-making impairments are vital cognitive mechanisms in internet use disorder (IUD). However, the underlying neural mechanisms for these two decision-making dysfunctions in individuals with IUD remain unclear.MethodsThis study employed Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record changes in blood oxygen concentration in the prefrontal cortex of individuals with IUD during intertemporal and risk decision-making tasks.ResultsThe findings revealed that the intertemporal decision-making deficits in IUD group were primarily associated with reduced activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and FC from the left dlPFC to the right dlPFC. On the other hand, risk decision-making impairments were linked to decreased OFC activation and weakened functional connectivity from the left dlPFC to the right dlPFC and OFC.Discussions and ConslusionsThese results suggested that while there were common neural mechanisms underlying intertemporal and risk decision-making impairments in individuals with IUD, specific neural foundations existed for each type of dysfunction.

Continuous risky decisions refer to decisions that involve trade-offs among options with persistent risks. People can use the probability of occurrence per unit time (e.g., ‘the probability of occurrence is 1% per month’) or the average time of risk occurrence (e.g., ‘the average occurrence time is 100 months’) to represent continuous risky options. In this study, we examined the effect of the presentation format (i.e., the probability of occurrence per unit time vs. the average time of risk occurrence) on continuous risky decisions in the gain domain and further explored the underlying mechanism. In Study 1 (N = 122), we demonstrated the effect of presentation format on continuous risky decisions and the moderating effect of the magnitude of probabilities. Specifically, when the probabilities were relatively low, compared with the probability of occurrence per unit time, using the average time of risk occurrence to present the continuous risky options led to more risk-averse decisions. However, when the probabilities were relatively high, compared with the probability of occurrence per unit time, the presentation format of the average time occurrence led to more risk-seeking decisions. In Study 2 (N = 136), we found that the moderating effect of the option probabilities on continuous risky decisions was mediated by the subjective attribute-wise difference judgment. In Study 3 (N = 221), we replicated the effect of presentation format on continuous risky decisions in more natural scenarios. The study offered a deep understanding of the mechanism of continuous risky decision-making, and the results were conducive to further developing theories in relevant fields.

Affective and cognitive mechanisms of risky decision making

Our aim was to investigate the cognitive neural basis, the behavioral characteristics, and the cognitive process of decision making with a group of 30 healthy Chinese adults. Two conditions with tasks drawn from prospect theory allowed us to examine how different risky decisions and related behaviors activate specific brain regions. Participants completed 2 decision tasks in which the amount of possible monetary gain and loss differed. Event-related potentials recorded for analysis during these tasks involved the N2 and P3 components. Participants' behaviors showed risk aversion in the monetary gain condition and risk seeking in the loss condition. Reaction time for risk-seeking decisions in a loss condition was significantly slower than for the same decision in a gain condition. The reactions to uncertainty shared a general neural network, but reactions were activated with different intensities in certain brain regions.

Supplemental Material for Reassessing the Gut–Cognition Link: Exploring Psychophysiological Mechanisms of Risky Decision-Making

Neural mechanisms underlying competition-induced optimal decisions in individuals with high entrepreneurial intention