Group · one in each half of the brain
Orbitofrontal cortex
Also called OFC
Right above your eyes: the region that decides what things are worth to you.
The orbitofrontal cortex is the underside of the frontal lobe, resting just above your eye sockets. It works out how valuable or rewarding things are right now, from a slice of cake to a friend's approval, and updates those values as things change. It blends taste, smell and emotion, and helps guide decisions and social behavior.
Where it is
On the underside of the frontal lobe, resting on the bony roof of your eye sockets, just behind and above your eyes.
What it does
Judging value
It works out how much you want something right now and compares options so you can choose.
Updating when things change
When a reward stops coming or a rule changes, it helps you notice and change your behavior.
Creating flavor
It combines taste, smell and texture into the full experience of flavor.
Social behavior
It helps you follow social rules and adjust your behavior based on how others react.
Learning from outcomes
It links choices to what happened afterwards, so good and bad experiences shape future decisions.
Think of it as an inner price-tag machine: it keeps rewriting what everything is worth to you, based on your needs, your past experience and the situation.
Inside the orbitofrontal cortex
- Lateral orbitofrontal cortexNotices when a choice stops paying off and helps you change course.
- Medial orbitofrontal cortexThe inner underside of the frontal lobe: where pleasure and feelings guide choices.
- Pars orbitalisThe lowest front corner of the language area: meaning, rhythm and emotion in words.
Works with
- AmygdalaTogether they tag things and situations with emotional value, good or bad.
- Nucleus accumbensThis reward hub works with it to turn value into the motivation to act.
- InsulaThe insula sends it taste information, which it combines with smell to create flavor.
- Olfactory nerve & bulb (I)Smell signals from the olfactory bulb, which lies just beneath it, reach this area after a short relay and add scent to its picture of flavor.
- Mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamusThis part of the thalamus keeps up a constant two-way exchange with it.
- Uncinate fasciculusThis hook-shaped bundle connects it to the temporal lobe and amygdala, linking memory and emotion to decisions.
When it goes wrong
Phineas Gage
In 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage survived an iron rod, about a meter long, that shot up through his left cheek and out through his skull. The damage fell mainly in the left frontal lobe, especially its underside. Friends said he was 'no longer Gage', though some historians now think he later recovered much of his ability to live and work, even driving stagecoaches in Chile.
Changes in behavior
People with damage here often keep their memory and intelligence, but may make risky decisions, act on impulse and struggle with social rules.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Overactive circuits linking this area with the basal ganglia are a common brain-scan finding in OCD.
For learning only, not medical advice. If you have a health concern, talk to a doctor.
Surprising facts
- Eat one food until you are full and activity here drops for that food, yet it still responds to a different food. That helps explain why there always seems to be room for dessert.
- In head injuries, the underside of the frontal lobes can scrape against the rough, bumpy bone of the skull floor, making this one of the most commonly bruised parts of the brain.
Where the name comes from
From the Latin "orbita", the eye socket (the word first meant the rut left by a wheel), plus "frontal". It is the part of the frontal lobe that sits on top of the eye sockets.
Learn it in a lesson
- Emotion and rewardFear, drive and the value of things. A short guided lesson in 3D.
Quick quiz
3 questions. Your answers are saved and come back in your daily review.
Which of these is a job of the orbitofrontal cortex?
Show the answer
Judging value. It works out how much you want something right now and compares options so you can choose.
Judging value. It works out how much you want something right now and compares options so you can choose.
The orbitofrontal cortex is part of which larger structure?
Show the answer
Frontal lobe. It belongs to the frontal lobe.
Frontal lobe. It belongs to the frontal lobe.
Which part fits this description? "Like an inner price-tag machine: it keeps rewriting what everything is worth to you, based on your needs, your past experience and the situation."
Show the answer
Orbitofrontal cortex. It is the orbitofrontal cortex. Right above your eyes: the region that decides what things are worth to you.
Orbitofrontal cortex. It is the orbitofrontal cortex. Right above your eyes: the region that decides what things are worth to you.
These parts now come back in your daily review, just before you would forget them.
Practice these parts in 3DSources
- Frontal Lobe Syndrome, StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf
- 8.2 The Gustatory System, OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience
- Phineas Gage: Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient, Smithsonian Magazine
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Explore the orbitofrontal cortex in 3D
Turn it around, zoom inside and see how it connects to the rest of the brain, then test yourself with quick quizzes.
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