Individual Differences in Decision-Making and Reward Processing: An Event-Related Potential Investigation
Abstract
Gambling paradigms tapping both reward processing and decision-making tasks in control and patient populations have found differences in behavior based on individual differences in immediate reward representation. The current investigation examined decision-making in individuals who differed on self-reported measures of impulsivity and used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the network dynamics of reward and decision-making circuitry among low and high impulsive participants. An inferior frontal component, the anterior P2 (P2a), indexing orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activity, and a medial frontal negativity (MFN), indexing anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activity, were measured related to choices made from high-risk and low-risk decks of cards in two modified versions of the Iowa Gambling Task. Results indicated that the P2a indexed reward expectation in a single-presentation version of the Iowa Gambling Task and the MFN indexed evaluation of decisions in a dual-presentation version of the Iowa Gambling Task.
