PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hilke Plassmann
AU  - John O'Doherty
AU  - Antonio Rangel
TI  - Orbitofrontal Cortex Encodes Willingness to Pay in Everyday Economic Transactions
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2131-07.2007
DP  - 2007 Sep 12
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 9984--9988
VI  - 27
IP  - 37
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/37/9984.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/37/9984.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2007 Sep 12; 27
AB  - An essential component of every economic transaction is a willingness-to-pay (WTP) computation in which buyers calculate the maximum amount of financial resources that they are willing to give up in exchange for the object being sold. Despite its pervasiveness, little is known about how the brain makes this computation. We investigated the neural basis of the WTP computation by scanning hungry subjects' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they placed real bids for the right to eat different foods. We found that activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex encodes subjects' WTP for the items. Our results support the hypothesis that the medial orbitofrontal cortex encodes the value of goals in decision making.