Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in the United States, havelinked human aversion to losing money to a specific brain structure, the amygdala. The study, published in the latest issue of the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), provides new data on theeconomic conductand on the role of this almond-shaped brain structure, which registers rapid emotional reactions and is implicated in depression, anxiety and autism.
In their experiments, the researchers examined two patients whose amygdala had been destroyed by a rare genetic disease. In the test, subjects were asked if they would participate in a bet in which there was a balanced probability of winning $ 20 or losing $ 5, a risk that most people would accept, and if they would make a 50/50 bet of winning. $ 20 or losing the same amount, a “risk” that we routinely reject.
Bothpatients with damaged tonsilthey chose risky bets more often than individuals of the same age and education who did not have lesions in this area of the brain. In fact, hisaversion to lose money was almost non-existentGet to the point of behaving recklessly. According to Benedetto de Martino, head of the study, “aversion to monetary loss has been studied in behavioral economics, also in monkeys, but this is the first time that we have worked with patients who completely lack it”.
Colin Camerer, a co-author of the study, concludes that the results demonstrate that “the amygdala is critical in triggering a sense of caution when placing betswhere it could be lost. ”This function of the amygdala, he adds, could be similar to its role in fear and anxiety.
