Your Money and Your Brain is a book written by Jason Zweig. This post has some notes from the book with the results of some of the studies cited in the book.
• Rats without a properly functioning nucleus accumbens are incapable of delaying gratification more than 80% of the time.
• An experiment showed that parts of the brain linked to anticipation showed increased activation when a picture appeared that had been linked to the prospect of making money.
• Research in monkeys found that dopamine neurons activate longer and stronger in response to a surprise reward rather than an expected reward.
• Research shows that when players do well at a video game, the amount of dopamine released in their brains doubles.
• Brain scans show increased amygdala activity when investors consider putting money in foreign markets.
• An experiment showed increased activity in the caudate nucleus when a button press was followed by a monetary reward.
• Experiments showed that a frightening word can increase anxiety even if it appears for only 12 one-thousandths of a second.
• Neuroimaging experiments showed that the amygdala became more active the more frequently people were told they were losing money.
• Brain scan experiments show that the expectation of financial losses can increase amygdala activity.
• Brain scans show that when people follow along with a peer group in making decisions, activation in parts of the frontal cortex decreases.
• Brain scans showed increased activity in the amygdala when people made decisions against the consensus of their peers.
• An experiment showed that the anterior cingulate cortex and a section of cells in the brainstem activated more intensely when errors resulted in a monetary loss.
• An experiment found that 38% of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex activated in response to a monetary loss, but only 13% of neurons where triggered when people received a larger than expected gain.
• A study showed that military veterans who had damage to the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex spent much less time on planning to pay for their retirement or for their children’s college education.
• An experiment found that neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex had much more activity when an expected financial gain failed to materialize than when an expected financial loss happened.
• Brain scans demonstrated that neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex had increased activity within about four seconds of winning money, but also became nearly as active when people avoided losing the same amount of money.
• Experiments showed that people with injuries in the orbitofrontal cortex or ventromedial prefrontal cortex avoided feeling regret when hearing how they could have earned more money in a gambling game.
• A neuroimaging study showed that increased orbitofrontal cortex activity was associated with elevated feelings of regret.
• An experiment found that the insula was about three times more active after people lost money as it was when people won money.
• An experiment found that the insula was more than four times as active when people chose a bet that might lead to a loss.
• An experiment demonstrated that people with stroke damage to the insula chose to put more money 97% of the time after a loss, compared to only 40% of people without damage to the insula.
• Autopsies show that people who suffered from chronic depression have severe shrinkage of cells in the left prefrontal cortex.
• Research shows that monkeys are willing to spend units of fruit juice to view images of monkeys that are higher in the social hierarchy.
• Brain scans show that young men show increased activation in reward centers when viewing exciting sports cars.
