Overview
- The Journal of Neuroscience paper, published Monday, reports that people with higher resilience tend to discount small losses and accept more mixed offers.
- Researchers tested 82 adults using a task where colored shapes signaled real money gains or losses while brain activity was measured with fMRI.
- Participants who placed less weight on minor losses showed higher activity to losses in prefrontal control regions and lower responses to gains.
- Computational modeling found lower sensitivity to negative information, with related connectivity linking prefrontal areas to the midbrain, striatum, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
- The authors stress the results are correlational and propose bias-training experiments to test whether shifting loss valuation can improve coping with stress.