Better you lose than I do: neural networks involved in winning and losing in a real time strictly competitive game

Many situations in daily life require competing with others for the same goal. In this case, the joy of winning is tied to the fact that the rival suffers. In this fMRI study participants played a competitive game against another player, in which every trial had opposite consequences for the two players (i.e., if one player won, the other lost, or vice versa). Our main aim was to disentangle brain activation for two different types of winning. Participants could either win a trial in a way that it increased their payoff; or they could win a trial in a way that it incurred a monetary loss to their opponent. Two distinct brain networks were engaged in these two types of winning. Wins with a monetary gain activated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with the processing of rewards. In contrast, avoidance of loss/other-related monetary loss evoked activation in areas related to mentalizing, such as the temporo-parietal junction and precuneus. However, both types of winnings shared activation in the striatum. Our findings extend recent evidence from neuroeconomics by suggesting that we consider our conspecifics’ payoff even when we directly compete with them.