The ability of the human brain to make wise decisions
Nero economics is a general framework for studying the neural
basis of economic decision making. At first glance, one may wonder how this
discipline can be relevant to the sort of issues that neurologists and
psychiatrists are concerned with, beyond identifying the causes of pathological
gambling or compulsive spending disorders.
Behavioral
economics
In most natural situations, our choices are rarely totally
black or white, and predicting how people will choose requires an accurate
model of how value is assigned to outcomes. More complex situations
arise when multiple individuals interact. In behavioral economics, game-theory
approaches are used to analyze scenarios in which an outcome is contingent upon
mutual decisions made by two or more individuals.
Neuronal
mechanisms
It can thus be seen that
empirical descriptions provided by models of real-world decisions can be
considered as normative behavior when evaluating pathological deviations in
patient populations. These models are also useful in the quest to elucidate the
underlying neurological mechanisms. Micromanaging studies have contributed to
the identification of the cerebral networks activated by value estimations and
choice behavior in humans.
Patient studies
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Reward and dopamine
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Identifying the elementary neural mechanisms used
to compute expected values and guide rational decision making is a central
objective of research in microeconomics, but also in the domains of
reinforcement learning (concerned with animals and humans) and machine
learning (concerned with computer models and robots)
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Nonsocial decision making
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The
endometrial and confrontational regions are important cortical targets of
dopamine projections, but also receive inputs from limb structures,
hippo campus, and other cortical areas. Probably the first and best-known
study of economic decision making in brain-lessened patients is that of Bukhara
and collaborator
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Social decision making
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Interest
in the mechanisms of social decision making is more recent. Access to vital
resources requires the establishment of trust and cooperation with social
partners. One function of social information is its intrinsic rewarding
quality
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Conclusions
The use of experimental approaches
and concepts from behavioral economics is a relatively new direction in
neuroscience and psychopathology. In interaction with other domains such as
reinforcement learning, computational
