Oscillatory brain activity correlates with risk perception and predicts social decisions.

Pablo Billeke*, Francisco Zamorano, Diego Cosmelli, Francisco Aboitiz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

In social interactions, the perception of how risky our decisions are depends on how we anticipate other people's behaviors. We used electroencephalography to study the neurobiology of perception of social risk, in subjects playing the role of proposers in an iterated ultimatum game in pairs. Based on statistical modeling, we used the previous behaviors of both players to separate high-risk [HR] offers from low-risk [LR] offers. The HR offers present higher rejection probability and higher entropy (variability of possible outcome) than the LR offers. Rejections of LR offers elicited both a stronger mediofrontal negativity and a higher prefrontal theta activity than rejections of HR offers. Moreover, prior to feedback, HR offers generated a drop in alpha activity in an extended network. Interestingly, trial-by-trial variation in alpha activity in the medial prefrontal, posterior temporal, and inferior pariental cortex was specifically modulated by risk and, together with theta activity in the prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, predicted the proposer's subsequent behavior. Our results provide evidence that alpha and theta oscillations are sensitive to social risk and underlie a fine-tuning regulation of social decisions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2872-2883
Number of pages12
JournalCerebral Cortex
Volume23
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by CONICYT (Grant number 24100226) and by the Millenium Center for the Neuroscience of Memory, Chile (NC10-001-F), which is developed with funds from the Innovation for Competitivity from the Ministry for Economics, Fomentation and Tourism, Chile.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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