To study this balance further, activity when chasing or quitting was compared with a third control condition where no decision was made before a response. Decisions to quit were associated with distinctive pattern of signal change such that activity within the left anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate, and parietal cortices was increased relative to the control condition, while activity within the ventromedial prefrontal and subgenual cingulate cortices that had been active during decision to chase was significantly reduced. Complementing this dissociation, decisions to chase also involved reduced activity in right anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and the inferior frontal gyrus relative to the control condition (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008).
