Neural Circuits at the Intersection of Feeling and Deciding

Affect plays a central role in perception and action. We register how good or bad we feel about objects in our environment at the moment of perception. These associations can guide decisions between different courses of action. And how we feel about those decisions influences subsequent affective states, and therefore subsequent decisions. A consistent set of brain regions has been implicated in affect and decision-making - including regions of medial prefrontal cortex, striatum, and insula - but their respective roles in interfacing between affect, valuation and choice are debated. One region in particular, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex/medial orbitofrontal cortex (vmPFC/mOFC), finds itself at the center of both affective and seemingly non-affective phenomena, in ways that can be either central or peripheral to the decision at hand.