Neural correlates of newsvendor-based decision making in the human brain: An exploratory study to link neuroeconomics with neuroimaging using fNIRS

Abstract

Neuroeconomics with neuroimaging is a novel approach involving economics and neuroscience.The newsvendor problem (NP) is a prevalent economics concept that may be used to map brain activations during NP-evoked risky decision making. In this study, we hypothesized that key brain regions responsible for NP are dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Twenty-seven human subjects participated in the study using 40 NP trials; the participants were randomly assigned to a group with a low-profit margin (LM) or high-profit margin (HM) treatment. Cerebral hemodynamic responses were recorded simultaneously during the NP experiments from all participants with a 77-channel functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. After data preprocessing, general linear model was applied to generate brain activation maps, followed by statistical t-tests. The results showed that: (a) DLPFC and OFC were significantly evoked by NP versus baseline regardless of treatment types; (b) DLPFC and OFC were activated by HM versus baseline; and (c) DLPFC was activated during LM versus baseline.Furthermore, significant deactivation in right DLPFC was shown due to LM with respect to HM.This study affirms that DLPFC and OFC are two key cortical regions when solving NP. In particular, right DLPFC was found to be more deactivated under challenging risk decision making.

Alterations of Cerebral Hemodynamics and Network Properties Induced by Newsvendor Problem in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

“…The human brain acts as one cohesive complex network, connecting all brain regions and sub-networks collectively into one intricate system. Brain network provides valuable information about the local and global functional connectivity (Petsche et al, 1997 ) and incorporates information and interaction capability (Bullmore and Sporns, 2009 ; Kong et al, 2015 ; Geng et al, 2017 ; Hu et al, 2019 ; Wanniarachchi et al, 2020 ). Graph theory has been used commonly to examine such brain networks at resting state.…”

“…A portion of this manuscript has been released partially as a pre-print (Wanniarachchi et al, 2020 ).…”

The correlations between kinematic profiles and cerebral hemodynamics suggest changes of motor coordination in single and bilateral finger movement

“…According to multiple regression analysis, the GLM was inserted into linear combinations of regressors to estimate the activation amplitudes correlated to specific movements ( Wanniarachchi et al, 2020 ). Moreover, we derive the integral value of the cerebral blood oxygen concentration in the task state minus the concentration in the resting state, which defines the degree of brain activation in the task state relative to the resting state.…”