Comparison of p300 in risk-seeker and risk-averse people during simple gambling task

Risk preference, the degree of tendency to take risk, has a fundamental role at individual and social health and is divided to risk seeker and risk averse. Therefore, the study of neural corelates of risk preferences is essential at the field of psychology and psychiatry. The current study aimed to examine and compare an ERP component named P300 between subjects with different risk preferences. Method: 28 people placed in two groups of risk seeker and risk averse (14 each group). Subjects performed simple gambling task. ERP data were processed by MATLAB software and ERPlab. Repeated measurement ANOVA was used to analyze data. Results: analysis of behavioral data presented that risk seekers selected low risk option more than high risk, but there was no significant difference of reaction time between groups. ERP analysis showed a significant decrease of P300 amplitude in risk seekers compared to risk averse when selecting high risk option. This result shows the importance of the differences in dopaminergic and motivational pathways of risk seekers during reward processing compared to healthy and risk-averse groups. Based on this result, it may be possible to consider the P300 component as a suitable indicator in clinical evaluations.