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Science 21 May 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5674, pp. 1167 - 1170
DOI: 10.1126/science.1094550
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Reports

The Involvement of the Orbitofrontal Cortex in the Experience of Regret

Nathalie Camille,1* Giorgio Coricelli,1,2* Jerome Sallet,1 Pascale Pradat-Diehl,3 Jean-René Duhamel,1 Angela Sirigu1{dagger}

Facing the consequence of a decision we made can trigger emotions like satisfaction, relief, or regret, which reflect our assessment of what was gained as compared to what would have been gained by making a different decision. These emotions are mediated by a cognitive process known as counterfactual thinking. By manipulating a simple gambling task, we characterized a subject's choices in terms of their anticipated and actual emotional impact. Normal subjects reported emotional responses consistent with counterfactual thinking; they chose to minimize future regret and learned from their emotional experience. Patients with orbitofrontal cortical lesions, however, did not report regret or anticipate negative consequences of their choices. The orbitofrontal cortex has a fundamental role in mediating the experience of regret.

1 Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France.
2 Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy.
3 Service de Médecine Physique et Réadaptation, Hôpital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75013 Paris, France.



* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sirigu{at}isc.cnrs.fr

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