Do We Need Emotions to Make Decisions? The Somatic Marker Hypothesis

Do we need emotions to make decisions? In this video I describe Antonio Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis and then discuss research using Antoine Bechara's Iowa Gambling Task to assess how emotional reactivity guides decision-making in healthy controls and patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Antonio Damasio: https://amzn.to/3C5iZTg (Amazon affiliate link)

Phineas Gage Brain Imagery from:
Van Horn, J. D., Irimia, A., Torgerson, C. M., Chambers, M. C., Kikinis, R., & Toga, A. W. (2012). Mapping Connectivity Damage in the Case of Phineas Gage. PLoS ONE, 7(5), e37454. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037454
10.1371/journal.pone.0037454
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...

Bechara, Antoine; Damasio, Hanna; Damasio, Antonio R.; Lee, Gregory P. (1999). Different Contributions of the Human Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex to Decision-Making. The Journal of Neuroscience, 19(13), 5473–5481. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.19-13-05473.1999
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...