Orbitofrontal Cortex Encodes Willingness to Pay in Everyday Economic Transactions

An essential component of every economic transaction is a willingness-to-pay (WTP) computation in which buyers calculate the maximum amount of financial resources that they are willing to give up in exchange for the object being sold. Despite its pervasiveness, little is known about how the brain ma...

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Published inThe Journal of neuroscience Vol. 27; no. 37; pp. 9984 - 9988
Main Authors Plassmann, Hilke, O'Doherty, John, Rangel, Antonio
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Soc Neuroscience 12.09.2007
Society for Neuroscience
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Brain Mapping - methods
Decision Making - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Middle Aged
Reward
Social Marketing
Time Factors
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0270-6474
1529-2401
1529-2401
DOI10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2131-07.2007

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Summary:An essential component of every economic transaction is a willingness-to-pay (WTP) computation in which buyers calculate the maximum amount of financial resources that they are willing to give up in exchange for the object being sold. Despite its pervasiveness, little is known about how the brain makes this computation. We investigated the neural basis of the WTP computation by scanning hungry subjects' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they placed real bids for the right to eat different foods. We found that activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex encodes subjects' WTP for the items. Our results support the hypothesis that the medial orbitofrontal cortex encodes the value of goals in decision making.
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ISSN:0270-6474
1529-2401
1529-2401
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2131-07.2007