Cerebral effects of unexpected events: an fMRI study

Background: One of the ways in which we understand associations in our environment is in terms of causal relationships. In this study, we explored the functional anatomy of contingency learning with a view to understanding the consequences, in terms of neuronal activity, of events that either violated or fulfilled a previously learned causal relationship. It was our prediction that such a violation would produce greater levels of activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)