The Somatic Marker Revisited: Brain and Body in Emotional Decision Making

Abstract

One important function of emotions is to guide decision making and behaviors for survival in complex environments. In the context of such reasoning, the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994) has argued that bodily states are represented in specific brain regions, such as the insula, and would play critical roles in decision making. However, it still remains unclear what causal roles bodily states would play in decision making, and how the bodily states would change accompanying decision making. Thus, the aim of this article is to reconsider aspects of the brain and bodily states in decision making based on recent findings. Questions for future research are proposed based on such findings.