Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex

The somatic marker hypothesis provides a systems-level neuroanatomical and cognitive framework for decision making and the influence on it by emotion. The key idea of this hypothesis is that decision making is a process that is influenced by marker signals that arise in bioregulatory processes, incl uding those that express themselves in emotions and feelings. This influenc e can occur at multiple levels of operation, some of which occur consciousl y and some of which occur non-consciously. Here we review studies that conf irm various predictions from the hypothesis. The orbitofrontal cortex repre sents one critical structure in a neural system subserving decision making. Decision making is not mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex alone, hut ari ses from large-scale systems that include other cortical and subcortical co mponents. Such structures include the amygdala, the somatosensory/insular c ortices and the peripheral nervous system. Here we focus only on the role o f the orbitofrontal cortex in decision making and emotional processing, and the relationship between emotion, decision making and other cognitive func tions of the frontal lobe. namely working memory.