Schedule of Events | Symposia

Examining neuroanatomical correlates of win-stay, lose-shift behaviour

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Matt Westerman^1,2 (matt.westerman@manchester.ac.uk), Glyn Hallam^2,3, Alex Kafkas¹, Holly D H Brown^2,4, Chris Retzler²; ¹School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, UK, ²Centre for Cognition and Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, The University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK, ³School of Education, Language and Psychology, York St John University, York, UK, ⁴School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

When no optimal decision-making strategy exists, randomness is considered the most effective approach; however, individuals often rely on prior outcomes to guide their choices. This study aimed to better understand the neuroanatomical correlates of decision-making strategies, particularly focusing on win-stay and lose-shift behaviours, using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in a large cohort of healthy adults from the Human Connectome Project. Participants engaged in a forced-choice card-guessing task designed to simulate neural responses to rewards and losses. The frequency of win-stay and lose-shift behaviour was extracted from the task for each participant and entered into the VBM analysis alongside measures of grey matter volume (GMV) and white matter volume (WMV). Our results revealed that increased lose-shift behaviour was associated with reduced GMV in key brain regions, comprising the left superior temporal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, and bilateral superior lateral occipital cortices. Interestingly, no significant associations were found between GMV or WMV and win-stay behaviour. These results suggest that specific regions within the temporal and occipital lobes are involved in modulating decision-making strategies following negative outcomes. Further analyses revealed increased lose-shift behaviour was associated with increased WMV in the left superior temporal gyrus. The absence of significant findings in relation to win-stay behaviour and the differential involvement of brain structures in lose-shift responses indicate that decision-making in the face of losses may involve distinct neuroanatomical mechanisms compared to decision-making following wins. This study advances our understanding of the structural brain correlates linked to decision-making strategies and highlights the complexity of brain-behaviour relationships.

Topic Area: THINKING: Decision making