Decreasing ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity during sequential risk-taking: an fMRI investigation of the balloon analog risk task
Open accessAbstract
Functional imaging studies examining the neural correlates of risk have mainly relied on paradigms involving exposure to simple chance gambles and an economic definition of risk as variance in the probability distribution over possible outcomes. However, there is little evidence that choices made during gambling tasks predict naturalistic risk-taking behaviors such as drug use, extreme sports, or even equity investing. To better understand the neural basis of naturalistic risk-taking, we scanned participants using fMRI while they completed the Balloon Analog Risk Task, an experimental measure that includes an active decision/choice component and that has been found to correlate with a number of naturalistic risk-taking behaviors. In the task, as in many naturalistic settings, escalating risk-taking occurs under uncertainty and might be experienced either as the accumulation of greater potential rewards, or as exposure to increasing possible losses (and decreasing expected value). We found that areas previously linked to risk and risk-taking (bilateral anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) were activated as participants continued to inflate balloons. Interestingly, we found that ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity decreased as participants further expanded balloons. In light of previous findings implicating the vmPFC in value calculation, this result suggests that escalating risk-taking in the task might be perceived as exposure to increasing possible losses (and decreasing expected value) rather than the increasing potential total reward relative to the starting point of the trial. A better understanding of how neural activity changes with risk-taking behavior in the task offers insight into the potential neural mechanisms driving naturalistic risk-taking.
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The BART involves both affective and cognitive control regions.
“We focused the PPI analyses on the BART task, given that both affective and cognitive control regions are involved during the task (Schonberg et al., 2012), whereas the GNG task targets primarily cognitive control-related brain function.”
From The effects of poor quality sleep on brain function and risk taking in adolescence (2013) · cites this paper as Schonberg et al., 2012
The insula has shown heightened activation among adults during the BART.
“Indeed, the insula is a brain region involved in tracking risk in the environment (Singer et al., 2009) and has shown heightened activation among adults during the BART (Schonberg et al., 2012).”
From The effects of poor quality sleep on brain function and risk taking in adolescence (2013) · cites this paper as Schonberg et al., 2012
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- Authors
- Schonberg, T., Fox, C. R., Mumford, J. A., Congdon, E., Trepel, C., & Poldrack, R. A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Venue
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2012
- Volume
- 6
- Pages
- 80-80
- ISSN
- 1662-453X (ISSN-L)
- 1662-4548
- PMC
- PMC3366349
- OpenAlex
- W2161843346
- Cited by
- 162
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 4.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Frontiers in Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0433693)
- 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 › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Keywords
- ventromedial prefrontal cortex, risk-taking, Balloon Analogue Risk Task, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, value calculation, expected value, gambling
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