Neural foundation for regret-based decision making

Humans decisions are not only driven by rationality but they are strongly influenced by emotions. Neuroscientific evidence shows how the brain attributes affective values to the alternative of our choices in terms of current or anticipated emotional experience. Patterns of reactivation of neural circuitries related to emotional responses are found at the time of choice when the brain is anticipating future consequences. Those patterns are the result of learning mechanisms derived from cumulative emotional experience. Here we describe the theoretical and neural basis of such adaptive processes based on regret.