Gamblers' thoughts were the focus of a recent neuroscience experiment tackling questions about fast human brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain known to be involved in reward processing and social interactions. The study, led by associate business and neuroscience professor Ming Hsu, looked at brain activity in gamblers' minds right after they placed bets. What the researchers found is that more than anticipating winning or doubting their judgement, they're processing regrets over prior bets, whether they had been successful or not. "It turns out that the most prevalent information encoded in the orbitofrontal cortex was the regret subjects experienced from their previous decision," says first author Ignacio Saez, a former postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley, now an assistant professor at UC Davis. Another co-author, psychology professor Robert Knight, a neurologist, says: "If you don't feel any regret, you are getting close to the world of addictive or antisocial behavior." He sees value in comparing regret in normal and injured brains, since the orbitofrontal cortex is often damaged by tumors and injuries, leading to altered behavior. This story originally appeared in Berkeley News.