Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Institute of Risk and Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2023 Jul 10;18(7):e0286969. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286969. eCollection 2023.
Forming and comparing subjective values (SVs) of choice options is a critical stage of decision-making. Previous studies have highlighted a complex network of brain regions involved in this process by utilising a diverse range of tasks and stimuli, varying in economic, hedonic and sensory qualities. However, the heterogeneity of tasks and sensory modalities may systematically confound the set of regions mediating the SVs of goods. To identify and delineate the core brain valuation system involved in processing SV, we utilised the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction, an incentivised demand-revealing mechanism which quantifies SV through the economic metric of willingness-to-pay (WTP). A coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis analysed twenty-four fMRI studies employing a BDM task (731 participants; 190 foci). Using an additional contrast analysis, we also investigated whether this encoding of SV would be invariant to the concurrency of auction task and fMRI recordings. A fail-safe number analysis was conducted to explore potential publication bias. WTP positively correlated with fMRI-BOLD activations in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex with a sub-cluster extending into anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral ventral striatum, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right anterior insula. Contrast analysis identified preferential engagement of the mentalizing-related structures in response to concurrent scanning. Together, our findings offer succinct empirical support for the core structures participating in the formation of SV, separate from the hedonic aspects of reward and evaluated in terms of WTP using BDM, and show the selective involvement of inhibition-related brain structures during active valuation.
形成和比较选择选项的主观价值(SVs)是决策的关键阶段。先前的研究利用各种不同的任务和刺激,包括经济、享乐和感官方面,强调了一个涉及该过程的大脑区域的复杂网络。然而,任务和感觉方式的异质性可能会系统地混淆介导商品 SV 的区域集。为了确定和描绘参与处理 SV 的核心大脑估值系统,我们利用了 Becker-DeGroot-Marschak(BDM)拍卖,这是一种激励性的需求揭示机制,通过支付意愿(WTP)的经济度量来量化 SV。基于坐标的激活似然估计元分析分析了 24 项使用 BDM 任务的 fMRI 研究(731 名参与者;190 个焦点)。使用额外的对比分析,我们还研究了这种 SV 编码是否不受拍卖任务和 fMRI 记录的并发影响。进行失效安全数分析以探索潜在的发表偏倚。WTP 与左侧腹内侧前额叶皮层的 fMRI-BOLD 激活呈正相关,一个亚簇延伸到前扣带皮层,双侧腹侧纹状体、右侧背外侧前额叶皮层、右侧下额回和右侧前岛叶。对比分析确定了在并发扫描时与心理化相关结构的优先参与。总的来说,我们的研究结果为参与 SV 形成的核心结构提供了简洁的经验支持,与奖励的享乐方面分开,并使用 BDM 根据 WTP 进行评估,并显示了在主动估值过程中抑制相关脑结构的选择性参与。