Brain Wages War Whether to Gamble or Settle

Filed in archive Gambling General on June 15, 2006

Gambling is all in the brain - literally.

According to a new study published in Nature Magazine, there are 2 separate conflicting regions in the brain that do battle between risk and a sure thing.

Using a gambling study in which subjects played a game with 4 slots with differing rewards. The subjects mentioned that they would often switch machine to discover which had the highest payout (called 'exploring') and then stick with the machine they thought they'd win the most with (called 'exploiting')

As the participants were deciding to explore for higher rewards, regions of the brain located behind the forehead and associated with logic became active. If they chose to exploit, regions deeper in the brain associated with pleasure and reward were more active.

Article: Battle in the brain: How we make choices