The valuation system: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of BOLD fMRI experiments examining neural correlates of subjective value

By Oscar Bartra, Joseph T. McGuire, Joseph W. Kable. NeuroImage, 2013

1,791 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Numerous experiments have recently sought to identify neural signals associated with the subjective value (SV) of choice alternatives. Theoretically, SV assessment is an intermediate computational step during decision making, in which alternatives are placed on a common scale to facilitate value-maximizing choice. Here we present a quantitative, coordinate-based meta-analysis of 206 published fMRI studies investigating neural correlates of SV. Our results identify two general patterns of SV-correlated brain responses. In one set of regions, both positive and negative effects of SV on BOLD are reported at above-chance rates across the literature. Areas exhibiting this pattern include anterior insula, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, dorsal and posterior striatum, and thalamus. The mixture of positive and negative effects potentially reflects an underlying U-shaped function, indicative of signal related to arousal or salience. In a second set of areas, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior ventral striatum, positive effects predominate. Positive effects in the latter regions are seen both when a decision is confronted and when an outcome is delivered, as well as for both monetary and primary rewards. These regions appear to constitute a "valuation system," carrying a domain-general SV signal and potentially contributing to value-based decision making.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/882d5e2e78aa753a4012a992564f7bd1e34055d1

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Citations in the corpus

Valence and Value (2018, neutral): “Valence-processing appears to be underlain by a single (albeit multicomponent) neurobiological network, involving not just subcortical evaluative regions in the basal ganglia, but also the anterior insula and anterior cingulate, together especially with orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cort”
Neural Correlates of Susceptibility to Group Opinions in Online Word-of-Mouth Recommendations (2015, background): “A substantial body of literature has established that social feedback is encoded in similar parts of the valuation system as primary rewards such as food and sex (Bartra, McGuire, and Kable 2013; Lieberman and Eisenberger 2009; McClure, York, and Montague 2004).”
The Brain Basis of Positive and Negative Affect: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of the Human Neuroimaging Literature. (2016, background): “We caution, however, that it is certainly possible to observe greater activity in brain regions for either positive relative to negative affect or negative relative to positive affect (Liu et al. 2011; Bartra et al. 2013), but this is only evidence that a brain region has a “relative” preference for”
Automatic integration of confidence in the brain valuation signal (2015, background): “Taken together, equations (4) and (5) make two predictions: (i) confidence ˆ ˆ, , q Q r = ( ) m s is a quadratic function of rating r̂ (see Fig.”
Consumer Neuroscience: Applications, Challenges, and Possible Solutions (2015, background): “Recently, Bartra, McGuire, and Kable (2013) analyzed 206 studies that report activations for higher-valued items compared with lower-valued items at all stages of the decision-making process (decision, outcome anticipation, and outcome receipt).”
The expected value of control: An integrative theory of anterior cingulate cortex function (2013, neutral): “Human neuroimaging studies have also provided evidence for reward-related signals in dACC (Knutson et al., 2005; Kouneiher et al., 2009; meta-analysis in Bartra et al., 2013).”
The Salience Network: A Neural System for Perceiving and Responding to Homeostatic Demands (2019, methodology): “An important meta-analysis, performed in 2013, showed that the ACC and aINS respond to salience independent of value (Bartra et al., 2013).”
Using EEG to Predict Consumers’ Future Choices (2015, methodology): “…same brain areas that represent values in a choice situation—primarily the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and striatum (for recent metastudies, see Bartra, McGuire, and Kable 2013; Clithero, Carter, and Huettel 2009; Levy and Glimcher 2012)—also represent values when participants are evaluating…”
Emotion and the Prefrontal Cortex: An Integrative Review (2017, methodology): “…Information The rostromedial prefrontal cortex (RMPFC) is consistently recruited in studies of emotion (Lindquist et al., 2016) and valuebased decision making (Bartra et al., 2013; Clithero & Rangel, 2014; Smith et al., 2010), however the specific role of this region has remained elusive.”
Human Orbitofrontal Cortex Represents a Cognitive Map of State Space. (2016, background): “Much research has investigated the location and nature of neural value representations (Bartra et al., 2013; Chase 1402 Neuron 91, 1402–1412, September 21, 2016 ª 2016 Elsevier In et al., 2015).”
Social Consumer Neuroscience: Neurophysiological Measures of Advertising Effectiveness in a Social Context (2017, neutral): “For instance, the VS and VMPFC are known to respond to a variety of rewarding stimuli, including primary (e.g., product), secondary (e.g., money), and social rewards (Bartra, McGuire, and Kable 2013).”
Motivation and cognitive control: from behavior to neural mechanism. (2015, background): “…structures including ventromedial and orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum (including the nucleus accumbens), and amygdala, as well as the ventral tegmental area, the source of mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine (DA) projections (Bartra et al. 2013, Clithero & Rangel 2014, Liu et al. 2011).”