Stimulating Risk-Taking Behavior

Are you the type of person that takes great risks for minimal rewards, or do you want big rewards for even minimal risk? No, this is not a survey of investment strategies, rather Knoch et al. this week offer some interesting insights into the cortical regions involved in risk-taking behavior. They used a standard gambling paradigm to assess risk-taking before and after stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Low-frequency stimulation (15 min, 1 Hz, or 900 pulses) transiently suppresses excitability in the targeted cortical regions for several minutes following rTMS. The subjects, young males in their 20s, earned greater rewards (or penalties) for higher risk choices and generated a point score after a 7 minute session. Subjects that had right, but not left, DLPFC stimulation earned fewer points and were more likely to choose the high-risk option, suggesting that right prefrontal areas affect risk-taking and that rTMS can cause short-term changes in behavior.

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Daria Knoch, Lorena R. R. Gianotti, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Valerie Treyer, Marianne Regard, Martin Hohmann, and Peter Brugger

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Stimulating Risk-Taking Behavior