Cerebellum Anatomy Predicts Individual Risk-taking Behavior and Risk Tolerance

Overview

Journal Neuroimage

Specialty Radiology

Date 2022 Mar 29

PMID 35346839

Authors

Peng Quan

Lisheng He

Tianxin Mao

Zhuo Fang

Yao Deng

Yu Pan

Xiaocui Zhang

Ke Zhao

Hui Lei

John A Detre

Joseph W Kable

Hengyi Rao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Human risk tolerance is highly idiosyncratic and individuals often show distinctive preferences when faced with similar risky situations. However, the neural underpinnings of individual differences in risk-taking remain unclear. Here we combined structural and perfusion MRI and examined the associations between brain anatomy and individual risk-taking behavior/risk tolerance in a sample of 115 healthy participants during the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, a well-established sequential risky decision paradigm. Both whole brain and region-of-interest analyses showed that the left cerebellum gray matter volume (GMV) has a strong association with individual risk-taking behavior and risk tolerance, outperforming the previously reported associations with the amygdala and right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) GMV. Left cerebellum GMV also accounted for risk tolerance and risk-taking behavior changes with aging. However, regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) provided no additional predictive power. These findings suggest a novel cerebellar anatomical contribution to individual differences in risk tolerance. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the underestimated important role of cerebellum in risk-taking.

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