Modulating OFC Activity With tDCS Alters Regret About Human Decision-Making

Ping Yu; Xinbo Lu; Yuyou Chen; Hang Ye; Lulu Zeng; Wenmin Guo

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.706962

Modulating OFC Activity With tDCS Alters Regret About Human Decision-Making

Front Psychol. 2021 Sep 8:12:706962. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.706962. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ping Yu^{1

2}, Xinbo Lu^{2

3}, Yuyou Chen^{1

2}, Hang Ye^{1

2}, Lulu Zeng^{1

2}, Wenmin Guo^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Economic Behavior and Decision-Making (CEBD), Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China.
² School of Economics, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China.
³ School of Economics, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China.

Abstract

Regret is a common emotion in daily life. Humans always regret their decision-making choices if the chosen outcome is bad. Neuroscientific studies suggest that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) influences feelings of regret. We used a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) device to study the role of regret in participants' decision-making by modulating the activity of the OFC. The two-wheel-of-fortune gamble task was used in our experimental design, and we asked the participants to rate their feelings of regret after the computer presented the obtained and unobtained outcomes. The experimental results revealed that the effect of stimulation type was significant, which indicated that the influence of the OFC in regret was modulated by tDCS. Furthermore, based on post hoc analyses (Bonferroni), regret was lower in those who received left anodal/right cathodal stimulation than in those who received sham stimulation, which revealed that modulating the activity of the OFC reduced the emotional intensity of regret. In addition, an inverted U-shaped curve characterized the mean ratings of regret over time.

Keywords: counterfactual thinking; decision-making; orbitofrontal cortex; regret; transcranial direct current stimulation.