As noted previously, activity was increased in the posterior cingulate cortex and parietal cortex when participants decided to quit the chase compared to when they decided to gamble, and also when they successfully cleared their losses. Neuronal activity within these areas is sensitive to the uncertainty of rewards linked to candidate actions (McCoy and Platt, 2005); and to be involved in integrating uncertainty and reward information to determine action value (Platt and Glimcher, 1999). Therefore, these results indicate that both decisions to quit—producing immediate losses—and successfully clearing losses (having decided to chase) engage a distributed network of neural systems that are implicated in monitoring processing conflicts, instrumental learning, risk appraisal and value attached to individual choices, and the subjective experience of emotional arousal.
