TY - JOUR
T1 - Value signals in the prefrontal cortex predict individual preferences across reward categories
AU - Gross, Jörg
AU - Woelbert, E.
AU - Zimmermann, J.
AU - Okamoto-Barth, S.
AU - Riedl, A.M.
AU - Goebel, R.
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - Humans can choose between fundamentally different options, such as watching a movie or going out for dinner. According to the utility concept, put forward by utilitarian philosophers and widely used in economics, this may be accomplished by mapping the value of different options onto a common scale, independent of specific option characteristics (Fehr and Rangel, 2011; Levy and Glimcher, 2012). If this is the case, value-related activity patterns in the brain should allow predictions of individual preferences across fundamentally different reward categories. We analyze fMRI data of the prefrontal cortex while subjects imagine the pleasure they would derive from items belonging to two distinct reward categories: engaging activities (like going out for drinks, daydreaming, or doing sports) and snack foods. Support vector machines trained on brain patterns related to one category reliably predict individual preferences of the other category and vice versa. Further, we predict preferences across participants. These findings demonstrate that prefrontal cortex value signals follow a common scale representation of value that is even comparable across individuals and could, in principle, be used to predict choice.
AB - Humans can choose between fundamentally different options, such as watching a movie or going out for dinner. According to the utility concept, put forward by utilitarian philosophers and widely used in economics, this may be accomplished by mapping the value of different options onto a common scale, independent of specific option characteristics (Fehr and Rangel, 2011; Levy and Glimcher, 2012). If this is the case, value-related activity patterns in the brain should allow predictions of individual preferences across fundamentally different reward categories. We analyze fMRI data of the prefrontal cortex while subjects imagine the pleasure they would derive from items belonging to two distinct reward categories: engaging activities (like going out for drinks, daydreaming, or doing sports) and snack foods. Support vector machines trained on brain patterns related to one category reliably predict individual preferences of the other category and vice versa. Further, we predict preferences across participants. These findings demonstrate that prefrontal cortex value signals follow a common scale representation of value that is even comparable across individuals and could, in principle, be used to predict choice.
U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5082-13.2014
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5082-13.2014
M3 - Article
C2 - 24872562
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 34
SP - 7580
EP - 7586
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 22
ER -