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Heightened sensitivity to losses, known as loss aversion, is a putative avoidance behaviour, which commonly influences decision-making, particularly in economic scenarios where participants have a 50/50 chance of winning or losing money. Evidence from neuropsychology, EEG and TMS research suggests individual differences in loss aversion may be explained by neural differences in the lateralisation of the right hemisphere. 40 healthy participants underwent an EEG recording during resting state and subsequently performed a behavioural loss aversion task, in which they had an equal chance of winning or losing money. EEG asymmetry in the alpha band at central and posterior sites was associated with individual differences in behavioural loss aversion. This asymmetry was driven by a combination of increased activation in the right hemisphere and decreased activation in the left hemisphere and the site of this asymmetry differed for females and males. These findings are discussed in relation to behavioural avoidance.

Loss aversion is a decision bias, reflecting a greater sensitivity to losses than to gains in a decision situation. Recent neuroscientific research has shown that mesocorticolimbic structures like ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum constitute a bidirectional neural system that processes gains and losses and exhibits a neural basis of loss aversion. On a functional and structural level, the amygdala and insula also seem to play an important role in the processing of loss averse behavior. By applying voxel-based morphometry to structural brain images in N=41 healthy participants, the current study provides further evidence for the relationship of brain structure and loss aversion. The results show a negative correlation of gray matter volume in bilateral posterior insula as well as left medial frontal gyrus with individual loss aversion. Hence, higher loss aversion is associated with lower gray matter volume in these brain areas. Both structures have been discussed to play important roles in the brain's salience network, where the posterior insula is involved in interoception and the detection of salience. The medial frontal gyrus might impact decision making through its dense connections with the anterior cingulate cortex. A possible explanation for the present finding is that structural differences in these regions alter the processing of losses and salience, possibly biasing decision making towards avoidance of negative outcomes.