https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180726085745.htm

The scientists examined a total of 157 male subjects aged 29 to 50 years. "In this age group, we can assume that all participants have gained at least some experience with financial investments and that their decisions are more realistic," explains first author Alexander Niklas Häusler, doctoral student at the Center for Economics and Neuroscience (CENs) at the University of Bonn. By limiting the study to male participants, gender-specific effects were excluded.

The participants first answered questionnaires on their economic situation (do you have debts?), their investment behavior (do you yourself trade stocks?) and their willingness to take risks (how risk taking are you with respect to financial investments?). They then underwent a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan whilst repeatedly answering the question: Should I buy a safe bond or perhaps make twice as much profit with a stock? After the decision was made by pressing a button, the stock outcome was displayed and the final sum of the experiment was later paid out to the participants. To allow for an adequate statistical evaluation of the results, each choice was repeated by the participants a total of 96 times.