Differential Brain Activity during Emotional versus Nonemotional Reversal Learning

■ The ability to change an established stimulus–behavior association based on feedback is critical for adaptive social be-haviors. This ability has been examined in reversal learning tasks, where participants first learn a stimulus–response associa-tion (e.g., select a particular object to get a reward) and then need to alter their response when reinforcement contingencies change. Although substantial evidence demonstrates that the OFC is a critical region for reversal learning, previous studies have not distinguished reversal learning for emotional associations from neutral associations. The current study examined whether OFC plays similar roles in emotional versus neutral reversal learning. The OFC showed greater activity during reversals of stimulus– outcome associations for negative outcomes than for neutral out-comes. Similar OFC activity was also observed during reversals involving positive outcomes. Furthermore, OFC activity is more inversely correlated with amygdala activity during negative rever-sals than during neutral reversals. Overall, our results indicate that the OFC is more activated by emotional than neutral re-versal learning and that OFCʼs interactions with the amygdala are greater for negative than neutral reversal learning.