Striatal sensitivity to personal responsibility in a regret-based decision-making task

Regret and relief are complex emotional states associated with the counterfactual processing of nonobtained outcomes in a decision-making situation. In the “actor effect,” a sense of agency and personal responsibility is thought to heighten these emotions. Using fMRI, we scanned volunteers (n = 22) as they played a task involving choices between two wheel-of-fortune gambles. We examined how neural responses to counterfactual outcomes were modulated by giving subjects the opportunity to change their minds, as a manipulation of personal responsibility. Satisfaction ratings to the outcomes were highly sensitive to the difference between the obtained and nonobtained outcome, and ratings following losses were lower on trials with the opportunity to change one’s mind. Outcome-related activity in the striatum and orbitofrontal cortex was positively related to the satisfaction ratings. The striatal response was modulated by the agency manipulation: Following losses, the striatal signal was significantly lower when the subject had the opportunity to change his/her mind. These results support the involvement of frontostriatal mechanisms in counterfactual thinking and highlight the sensitivity of the striatum to the effects of personal responsibility.