Complementary and opponent value signals in the human brain support choosing the best and avoiding the worst
Clarissa Baratin, Alizée Lopez-Persem, Philippe Kahane, Lorella Minotti, Jiri Hammer, Petr Marusič, Anca Nica, Sylvain Rheims, Louis Maillard, Marie Denuelle, Emmanuel Barbeau, Blandine Chanteloup-Forêt, Mathias Pessiglione, Guillaume Becq, Julien Bastin · 2026
Read Complementary and opponent value signals in the human brain support choosing the best and avoiding the worst by Clarissa Baratin, Alizée Lopez-Persem, Philippe Kahane, Lorella Minotti, Jiri Hammer, Petr Marusič, Anca Nica, Sylvain Rheims, Louis Maillard, Marie Denuelle, Emmanuel Barbeau, Blandine Chanteloup-Forêt, Mathias Pessiglione, Guillaume Becq, Julien Bastin (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13572439.txt.
Description
Clarissa Baratin and co-authors find that the brain keeps separate ledgers for good and bad. Their 2026 paper records deep brain activity in people rating pleasant and unpleasant scenes, then choosing between options. One region, low in the frontal lobe, tracked the worth of pleasant items in its fast gamma waves. A second region, the anterior insula, tracked the worth of unpleasant ones.
Each signal followed the most extreme item of its kind, whatever the choice frame. The two signals split widest when item type and frame clashed. The authors conclude that picking the best and dodging the worst run on partner circuits, not one shared scale. That split may shape how choices go wrong in mood and anxiety disorders.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Clarissa Baratin, Alizée Lopez-Persem, Philippe Kahane, Lorella Minotti, Jiri Hammer, Petr Marusič, Anca Nica, Sylvain Rheims, Louis Maillard, Marie Denuelle, Emmanuel Barbeau, Blandine Chanteloup-Forêt, Mathias Pessiglione, Guillaume Becq, Julien Bastin |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 76 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |