Brian Sweis used Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of regret in rat decision-making on a neuroeconomic task, an article by A. David Redish and Adam P. Steiner, to introduce the topic of regret and the orbitofrontal cortex. According to the authors, regret is a universal human experience and it plays a crucial role in helping us modify our future actions. When we feel and express regret, a part of our brain known as the orbitofrontal cortex activates.
It is difficult to claim that nonhuman mammals feel regret because it has not been identified yet, but one can create regret-inducing situations to test whether or not the animals displays neurophysiological responses that one would associate with feelings of regret. For rats, the OFC and the ventral striatum are involved in reward computation. The authors conducted a study where rats encountered a decision-making task at different reward zones. Each reward zone was calibrated to release a reward after a certain amount of delay had passed, and if the rats was economically maximizing it would “distribute its time among the offers, waiting for valuable offers but skipping expensive offers” (Redish & Steiner, 2014)
As expected, they were more likely to wait in the zones where the delay was less than the rats’ threshold for the zone’s particular flavor. Within the study, they also performed an experiment to see if the rats would display regret if they encountered a high-cost choice after skipping a low-cost one. Sure enough, the rats would look back towards the low-cost zone, which was an indicator of regret. “ An important role of regret in decision-making is that it changes subsequent decisions; after making a mistake and recognizing that mistake, rats were more likely to take a high-cost option and rush through the consumption of that less-valuable option.” (Redish et al., 2014).
When the rats were beginning to look backwards towards the low-cost reward zone, neural activity in the OFC and ventral striatum spiked which was an indicator that led the authors to conclude that rats exhibit regret. Ellie Zolfagharifard published an article on a study conducted by Monash University and Dr. Pascal Molenberghs that also focused on regret and the OFC. The article noted that brain scans “have pinpointed a region called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which is activated based on whether or not someone feels the crime is justified.” (Zolfagharifard, 2015).
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| The green area shows the approximate location of the OFC |
Dr. Molenberghs used these initial scans to create an experiment where he had participants play video games where they imagined themselves shooting two possible targets: innocent civilians or enemy soldiers. As they were playing, the researchers recorded the participants’ brain activity using an fMRI. When they imagined themselves shooting enemy soldiers there was little to no activation in the OFC whereas activity spiked in response to imagining themselves shoot civilians. Thus, “the results show that the neural mechanisms that are typically implicated with harming others become less active when the violence against a particular group is seen as justified.” (Zolfagharifard, 2015).
The author made an interesting final point by stating that this study follows a separate study done the previous year that had discovered that violent acts are usually a result of people wanting to do the right thing. For example, a person who committed murder felt that it was morally necessary for them to commit said crime, felt that it was the appropriate response to whatever that victim had done to them. It is interesting how further studies on the lateral orbitofrontal cortex can help shed a light on the minds of murderers, rapists, and other deviants. It would also be interesting to see how, or if, the OFC plays a role in desensitization towards violence.
Works Cited
Dailymail.com, E. Z. (2015). How killers are made: Brain scans reveal the way in which people justify murder. Retrieved March 02, 2016, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3030989/How-killers-Brain-scans-reveal-way-people-justify-murder.html
Steiner, A. P., & Redish, A. D. (2014). Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of regret in rat decision-making on a neuroeconomic task. Nature Neuroscience Nat Neurosci, 17(7), 995-1002. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
Images:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/12/science/12GAME/12GAME-superJumbo.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitofrontal_cortex#/media/File:OFC.JPG
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