Monetary gain and high-risk tactics stimulate activity in the brain
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - 12:14
in Psychology & Sociology
Monetary gain stimulates activity in the brain. Even the mere possibility of receiving a reward is known to activate an area of the brain called the striatum. A team of Japanese researchers report in the January 2010 issue of Cortex, published by Elsevier, the results of a study in which they measured striatum activation in volunteers performing a monetary task and found high-risk/high-gain options to cause higher levels of activation than more conservative options. They also found levels of activation to increase with the amount of money owned.