Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity and Sympathetic Allostasis During Value-Based Ambivalence.

ABSTRACT: Anxiety is characterized by low confidence in daily decisions, coupled with high levels of phenomenological stress. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays an integral role in maladaptive anxious behaviors via decreased sensitivity to threatening vs. non-threatening stimuli (fear generalization). vmPFC is also a key node in approach-avoidance decision making requiring two-dimensional integration of rewards and costs. More recently, vmPFC has been implicated as a key cortical input to the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. However, little is known about the role of this brain region in mediating rapid stress responses elicited by changes in confidence during decision making. We used an approach-avoidance task to examine the relationship between sympathetically mediated

SUBMITTER: Dundon NM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7937876 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature