Value across time and context in the maturing human brain

Anastasia Christakou 
University of Reading

The decision-making brain is a moving target. The criteria we apply to 
evaluate the outcomes of our decisions change from moment to moment, as 
experience is unfolding, and across a longer time-frame, as we mature. How 
can we study such a dynamical system? In recent and ongoing work, we study 
the neural mechanisms that evaluate the outcomes of our decisions, and how 
these evaluative processes guide future behavioural policies. This work 
highlights the involvement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in 
the context-sensitive evaluation of decision outcomes across domains (e.g. 
symbolic or social), and across development. Maturation of networks 
involving the vmPFC underpin maturational gains in decision-making 
sophistication, and may underpin age-related differences in decision-making 
in later life.