Increased activation in the right insula during risk-taking decision making is related to harm avoidance and neuroticism
Abstract
Decision making and risk taking are interrelated processes that are important for daily functioning. The somatic marker hypothesis has provided a conceptual basis for processes involved in risk-taking decision making and has been used to link discrete neural substrates to risk-related behaviors. This investigation examined the hypothesis that the degree of risk-taking is related to the degree of activation in the insular cortex. Seventeen healthy, right-handed subjects performed a risk-taking decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using a fast event-related design. This investigation yielded three main findings. First, right insula (BA 13) activation was significantly stronger when subjects selected a "risky" response versus selecting a "safe" response. Second, the degree of insula activation was related to the probability of selecting a "safe" response following a punished response. Third, the degree of insula activation was related to the subjects' degree of harm avoidance and neuroticism as measured by the TCI and NEO personality questionnaires, respectively. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that insula activation serves as a critical neural substrate to instantiate aversive somatic markers that guide risk-taking decision-making behavior.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Anterior insula activity is associated with individuals' risk-taking propensity during risky decision-making; those with higher levels of harm avoidance and neuroticism exhibit greater insula activation.
“and with individuals’ risk-taking propensity during risky decision-making; those with higher levels of harm avoidance and neuroticism exhibited greater insula activation (Paulus, Rogalsky, et al., 2003).”
From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Paulus, Rogalsky, et al., 2003
Activity in areas subserving interoception, including the insula and ACC, shows patterns consistent with the representation of risk and risk and reward prediction errors.
“Studies using this technique have demonstrated that activity in areas subserving interoception, including the insula and ACC, show patterns of activity consistent with the representation of risk (formally the variance associated with the outcome of a particular stimulus) and risk and reward prediction errors (Asahi et al., 2006; Mizuhiki et al., 2012; Paulus, Rogalsky, et al., 2003; Preuschoff et”
From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Paulus, Rogalsky, et al., 2003
The anterior insula has been associated with processing information about risk.
“Moreover, the aIns has been associated with processing information about risk (Burke and Tobler, 2011; Ishii et al., 2012; Paulus et al., 2003; Preuschoff et al., 2008).”
From Cognitive flexibility in adolescence: Neural and behavioral mechanisms of reward prediction error processing in adaptive decision making during development (2015) · cites this paper as Paulus et al., 2003
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 65 · Cited by 745
- Authors
- Paulus, M. P., Rogalsky, C., Simmons, A., Feinstein, J. S., & Stein, M. B.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Paulus, Martin P
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2003-08
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1439-1448
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2164568585
- Cited by
- 745
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 49 · 2015: 46 · 2014: 50 · 2013: 55 · 2012: 51
- FWCI
- 5.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of California, San Diego
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (R21 DA 13186, R21DA013186)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Leadership, Behavior, and Decision-Making Studies
- Keywords
- right insula, harm avoidance, neuroticism, somatic marker hypothesis, personality traits, punishment
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Arousal, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Decision Making, Dominance, Cerebral, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Neurotic Disorders, Personality Inventory, Probability Learning, Risk-Taking, Harm Reduction
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
