An fMRI Study of Emotional engagement in decicion-making
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It has been suggested that decision
making depends on sensitive feelings associated
with cognitive processing rather than cognitive
processing alone. From human lesions, we know
the medial anterior inferior-ventral prefrontal
cortex processes the sensitivity associated with
cognitive processing, it being essentially
responsible for decision making.
In this fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance
Image) study 15 subjects were analyzed using
moral dilemmas as probes to investigate the neural
basis for painful-emotional sensitivity associated
with decision making. We found that a network
comprising the posterior and anterior cingulate
and the medial anterior prefrontal cortex was
significantly and specifically activated by painful
moral dilemmas, but not by non-painful dilemmas.
These findings provide new evidence that the
cingulate and medial anterior prefrontal are
involved in processing painful emotional
sensibility, in particular, when decision making
takes place. We speculate that decision making
has a cognitive component processed by cognitive
brain areas and a sensitivity component processed
by emotional brain areas. The structures activated
suggest that decision making depends on painful
emotional feeling processing rather than cognitive
processing when painful feeling processing
happens
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