Predicting the brain distribution of consequence by mathematical means

Abstract

[en] Functional Magnetic resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a non invasive tool used to examine the cognitive and affective processes in the brain. It is important to note that, although fMRI is indirect, it has been used with success to corroborate the results from the animal into the human brain and improve models to include more common human characteristics that influence behavior. This work aims to answer to the question "Which cortical and subcortical areas are involved in anticipation of the consequence?" by doing a Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis over reported results of several papers from literature. These reports used fMRI to track the brain hemodynamic response of the subjects in different tasks and reported the peak coordinates of activation. The prefrontal cortex was observed to contain a consequence network that was modulated by being rewarded with a high incentive in a decision-making task. Another concordant regional activation in the frontal lobe, insula and putamen was found during "n-back" task for working memory and decision-making tasks.