Emory University Neuroscientist Greg Berns and colleagues have found the answer: a brain-scanning study of people making financial choices found that when given the so-called expert advice, the decision-making parts of their brains often shut down.

In the study, Berns’ team hooked 24 college students to brain scanners as they contemplated swapping a guaranteed payment for a chance at a higher lottery payout. Sometimes the students made the decision on their own. At other times they received written advice from Charles Noussair, an Emory University economist who advises the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Though the recommendations were delivered under his imprimatur, Noussair himself wouldn’t necessarily follow it. The advice was extremely conservative, often urging students to accept tiny guaranteed payouts rather than playing a lottery with great odds and a high payout. But students tended to follow his advice regardless of the situation, especially when it was bad.

When thinking for themselves, students showed activity in their anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — brain regions associated with making decisions and calculating probabilities. When given advice from Noussair, activity in those regions flat lined.

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In the study, published recently in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, scientists wired up a series of men and women to an MRI scanner while they played a video game, which involved competing to win on-screen territory by clicking on a series of balls.

After analysing the MRI data, the researchers found participants showed activation in the brain’s mesocorticolimbic centre, the region typically associated with reward and addiction.

Male brains, however, showed much greater activation, and the amount increased as they gained more territory. This was not the case with women.

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