Fruit flies may be able to teach researchers a thing or two about artificial intelligence. University of Michigan biologists and their colleagues have uncovered a neural network that enables Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies to convert external stimuli of varying intensities into a “yes or no” decision about when to act. The research, scheduled to publish […]

A team based in the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford in the UK and Yale University in the US investigated the different approaches to avoiding pain for the first time. They found that when learning to avoid harming ourselves, our decision-making tends to be more forward-looking and deliberative. The findings, published in Proceedings of the […]

You are sitting in a café and want to enjoy a piece of cake with your cappuccino. The Black Forest gateau is just too rich for you and is therefore quickly eliminated. Choosing between the carrot cake and the rhubarb crumble is much trickier: The warm weather favors the refreshingly fruity cake. Carrot cake, however, […]

Scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have recorded real time changes in dopamine and serotonin levels in the human brain that are involved with perception and decision-making. These same neurochemicals also are critical to movement disorders and psychiatric conditions, including substance abuse and depression. Their findings are published in the Oct. 12 edition of […]

Humans, like other animals, have the ability to constantly adapt to new situations. Researchers at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich have utilized a mouse model to reveal which neurons in the brain are in command in guiding adaptive behavior. Their new study contributes to our understanding of decision-making processes in healthy […]

In an open marketplace, such as a farmers’ market where produce and other goods like candles and flowers are exchanged for money, the ideal prices for both consumers and sellers will quickly emerge. For example, if a seller tries to offer a bag of peaches for $10 but another vendor is willing to sell similar […]

Research carried out by a University academic has shed new light on the fundamentals of how, and why, we make the decisions we do. In two separate studies, UKRI Future Leader Fellow and Lecturer in Psychology, Dr Elsa Fouragnan has used her expertise in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational analysis to discover exactly […]

Humans are often motivated by self-interest. Participants in one study, for example, learned a game faster when they earned money for themselves as opposed to another person. However, this pattern changes when physical harm enters the equation. As social beings, we need to learn to avoid actions that hurt others and it turns out that […]

Matthew Smith and Byron Yu, along with former Ph.D. student Ben Cowley (Ph.D., SCS ’18), have studied the neural basis through which internal states in the brain affect decision-making over an extended period of time. Through recording the activity of populations of neurons simultaneously in two brain areas, they were able to gain unprecedented insight […]

A new Tel Aviv University study examined the brain’s reactions in conditions of uncertainty and stressful conflict in an environment of risks and opportunities. The researchers identified the areas of the brain responsible for the delicate balance between desiring gain and avoiding loss along the way.