The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) requires participants to select one card from four existing decks, each of which is associated with different profiles of monetary gain and loss (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994; Bechara, Tranel, & Damasio, 2000). Some decks initially appear lucrative but eventually result in catastrophic loss. Other decks are ‘steady earners’, with small wins rarely penalized by even smaller losses. Healthy adults tend to favor the risky decks initially, but then often unconsciously settle on the safer options (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997). In adults, the IGT involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the insula and posterior cingulate cortex, the medial orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the ventral striatum, anterior cingulate and supplementary motor area (Li, Lu, D’Argembeau, Ng, & Bechara, 2010).
