Human Brain Response to Winning and Losing.

Abstract:
The human amygdala is important in processing emotional cues expressed by faces or in social scenarios. Competitive success or failure also conveys a powerful emotional message. We combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with psychometric manipulation of emotional cue presentation to assess the role of the amygdala. We taught subjects a simple reaction time game on a computer monitor and told them that they were competing against opponents in a tournament. The tournament winner would receive a prize. Subjects were notified of their performance when the words Win (indicating they were doing well) or Lose (indicating they were performing poorly) appeared on the computer monitor. We divided the game into blocks in which the frequency of WIN and LOSE feedback parametrically varied from 20% to 80%. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the feedback was unrelated to their actual performance. Increasing the ratio of Win/Lose feedback induced activation of the left amygdala and was associated with self-confidence, whereas increasing the ratio of Lose/Win feedback resulted in activation of the right amygdala and was associated with frustration. In both cases, the magnitude of amygdala activation varied with the parametric manipulation of feedback. These findings demonstrate the differential role of the amygdala in modulating positive and negative emotions.