The brain recruits its own decision-making circuits to simulate how other people make decisions

December 14, 2012 in Neuroscience

The brain recruits its own decision-making circuits to simulate how other people make decisions

Enlarge

The researchers scanned participants' brains while they made a simple decision and while they predicted other people's decisions about the same task. Credit: 2012 Hiroyuki Nakahara, RIKEN Brain Science Institute

A team of researchers led by Hiroyuki Nakahara and Shinsuke Suzuki of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has identified a set of brain structures that are critical for predicting how other people make decisions.

This phenomenon is thought to involve simulation learning, a process by which the brain generates a model of how another person will act by directly recruiting its own decision-making circuits. However, little else is known about the underlying brain mechanisms.

Nakahara and his colleagues used to scan participants' brains while they performed two simple decision-making tasks. In one, they were shown pairs of and had to choose the 'correct' one from each, based on randomly assigned reward values. In the second, they had to predict other people's decisions for the same task.

The researchers confirmed that the participants' own decision-making circuits were recruited to predict others' decisions. The scans showed that their brains simultaneously tracked how other people behaved when presented with each pair of stimuli, and the rewards they received.

Effective simulated learning occurs when the brain minimizes two different prediction errors—the discrepancies between its prediction of others' actions and the rewards they received and how they actually acted and were rewarded. The researchers found that each of these variables was associated with activity in a distinct part of the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The bigger the prediction error in simulating other people's rewards, the more activity was observed in the (vmPFC) an area located at the base of the frontal lobe of the brain that is associated with decision making, while the larger the prediction error in simulating another's actions, the more active were the dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices.

The ability to attribute to others is referred to as , or 'mentalizing', and is widely thought to involve the PFC. This, however, is the first study to show that activity in the PFC encodes prediction errors of one's own rewards as well as those of the simulated decisions of other people, and that both of these signals are required for simulated learning. "We showed that simple simulation is not enough [to predict other peoples' decisions], and that the simulated other's action is used to track variations in another person's behavior," says Nakahara. "In real life, some people are similar to us but others are not. Yet, we still interact with different types of people somehow, and next we hope to understand how this is possible."

More information: Suzuki, S., Harasawa, N., Ueno, K., Gardner, J.L., Ichinohe, N., Haruno, M., Cheng, K. & Nakahara, H. Learning to simulate others' decisions. Neuron 74, 1125–1137 (2012). www.cell.com/neuro… 12%2900427-8

Journal reference: Neuron search and more info website

Provided by RIKEN search and more info website

not rated yet  

Rank not rated yet
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

For combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, 'fear circuitry' in the brain never rests

Chronic trauma can inflict lasting damage to brain regions associated with fear and anxiety. Previous imaging studies of people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, have shown that these brain regions can over-or ...

Neuroscience created May 18, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Temporal processing in the olfactory system

The neural machinery underlying our olfactory sense continues to be an enigma for neuroscience. A recent review in Neuron seeks to expand traditional ideas about how neurons in the olfactory bulb might encode information about ...

Neuroscience created May 17, 2013 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Melon focus headband turns to Kickstarter for rollout plans

(Medical Xpress)—What if the quality of your work depends more on your focus on the piano keys or canvas or laptop than your musical or painting or computing skills? If target users can be convinced, they ...

Neuroscience created May 17, 2013 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast weblog

Deep brain stimulation: A fix when the drugs don't work

Neurological disorders can have a devastating impact on the lives of sufferers and their families.

Neuroscience created May 17, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Brain makes call on which ear is used for cell phone

If you're a left-brain thinker, chances are you use your right hand to hold your cell phone up to your right ear, according to a newly published study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Neuroscience created May 16, 2013 | popularity 2 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast


New theory on genesis of osteoarthritis comes with successful therapy in mice

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have turned their view of osteoarthritis (OA) inside out. Literally. Instead of seeing the painful degenerative disease as a problem primarily of the cartilage that cushions joints, ...

Computational tool translates complex data into simplified 2-dimensional images

In their quest to learn more about the variability of cells between and within tissues, biomedical scientists have devised tools capable of simultaneously measuring dozens of characteristics of individual ...

Researchers identify a potential new risk for sleep apnea: Asthma

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have identified a potential new risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea: asthma. Using data from the National Institutes of Health (Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)-funded Wisconsin ...

Study finds that sleep apnea and Alzheimer's are linked

A new study looking at sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and neuroimaging adds to the growing body of research linking the two.

'Gap' for HIV vaccine efforts after latest setback

The hunt for an HIV vaccine has gobbled up $8 billion in the past decade, and the failure of the most recent efficacy trial has delivered yet another setback to 26 years of efforts.

Ginger compounds may be effective in treating asthma symptoms

Gourmands and foodies everywhere have long recognized ginger as a great way to add a little peppery zing to both sweet and savory dishes; now, a study from researchers at Columbia University shows purified components of the ...