Serotonergic modulation of orbitofrontal activity and its relevance for decision making and impulsivity.

Background: The orbitofrontal cortex seems to play a crucial role in reward-guided learning and decision making, especially for impulsive choice procedures including delayed reward discounting. The central serotonergic system is closely involved in the regulation of impulsivity, but how the serotonergic firing rate and release, best investigated by the loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP), interact with orbitofrontal activity is still unknown.

Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers (11 males, 9 females, 31.