Ventral Striatal Activation During Incentive Anticipation Represents Incentive Salience. Left panel: BOLD response in the bilateral ventral striatum during anticipation of potential monetary reward and loss avoidance compared with the neutral condition in 44 healthy controls (P < .05 family wise error corrected for the whole brain; displayed at Montreal Neurological Institute coordinate y = 6). Right panel upper part: Higher activation during anticipation of larger amounts of monetary gain resp. loss avoidance: Parameter estimates for the different cues indicating different amounts of loss avoidance and reward or no monetary consequences (−3.0€, −0.6€, −0.1€, ±0€, +0.6€, +3.0€, +0.1€): Cues that indicate higher gain or higher loss-avoidance trials elicited stronger activation compared with lower amounts of money (parameter estimates from the peak voxel of the right ventral striatum at x = 15, y = 6, z = −9, t = 7.57). Right panel lower part: Cues that predict higher gains or the possibility to avoid higher losses elicited faster reaction times than cues predicting lower gains (respectably loss avoidance) with the lowest reaction times following neutral cues. This indicated that these stimuli actually represent an incentive to adjust goal-directed behavior according to the predicted gain or loss avoidance.