How A Beating Heart Affects Decision-Making Neuron Circuits In The Brain.
Key Sentence:
- That monitor the state of the body can interfere with the decision-making process.
Anxiety, addiction, and other mental disorders are often characterized by intense states that scientists call arousal: heart rate, blood pressure levels increase, breathing shortens, and "bad" decisions are made. To understand how this condition affects decision-making processes in the brain, scientists at Icahn Medical School at Mount Sinai analyzed data of previous studies on non-human primates.
They found that two from the brain's decision-making centers contain neurons that can only monitor the body's internal dynamics. In addition, an increase in arousal status appears to divert one of the centers, making several decision neurons monitor the internals of that state.
"Our results suggest that decision-making patterns in the brain can be linked to monitoring and integrating what is constantly happening in the body. D. is Associate Professor in the Nash Department of Family Neurology and Friedman Brain Institute at Mount Sinai. published in PNAS (National Academy of Sciences Notices), "We hope these results will help researchers better understand the brain areas and cellular processes that underlie some psychiatric disorders."
Dr conducted the study. Atsushi Fujimoto, an instructor at Dr. Rudebek's laboratory, studied how the brain fixed risk-taking.
For years, scientists have described the relationship about arousal also performance in decision-making as a "U-shaped curve." In general, a little excitement - like after a cup of coffee - can go a long way. But too much and too little excitement increases the likelihood that the brain will make slow or wrong decisions.
The researchers analyzed data from a previous series of experiments that tested the ability of three rhesus monkeys to decide whether they would receive two rewards: a delicious juice or a small one. Dr. Rudebeck conducted this experiment while he was a PhD student at the National Institute of Mental Health.
As expected, the monkeys consistently chose to drink more juice. On average, they made that decision more quickly when their hearts beat faster, which supports the idea that an excited state promotes better performance.