http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—Researchers from Ireland's Trinity College and Caltech in the US have found after analyzing brain scans of young volunteers, that two brain regions appear to be involved the decision making process when people size up others of the opposite gender being viewed as potential mates. After undertaking trial studies involving volunteers from Trinity, the team has found, as they report in their paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience, that one part of the prefrontal cortex appears to gauge physical attractiveness, while another judges likeability. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brain-involved-potential.html Neuroscience Thu, 08 Nov 2012 07:40:23 EST news271582801 Why do our brains make more mistakes when we act quickly? A new study demonstrates how the brain follows Ben Franklin's famous dictum, "Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-insight-haste.html Neuroscience Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:00:01 EST news271506968 (Medical Xpress)—Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken one of the first detailed looks into how Alzheimer's disease disrupts coordination among several of the brain's networks. The results, reported in The Journal of Neuroscience, include some of the earliest assessments of Alzheimer's effects on networks that are active when the brain is at rest. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-breakdown-neural-networks-doctors-track.html Neuroscience Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:47:16 EST news267173215 Managers and non-managers show distinctly different brain activation patterns when making decisions, according to research published Aug. 22 in the open access journal PLOS ONE. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-managerial-role-automatic-decision-making.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:13:09 EST news264874371 The frontal lobes are the largest part of the human brain, and thought to be the part that expanded most during human evolution. Damage to the frontal lobes—which are located just behind and above the eyes—can result in profound impairments in higher-level reasoning and decision making. To find out more about what different parts of the frontal lobes do, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) recently teamed up with researchers at the world's largest registry of brain-lesion patients. By mapping the brain lesions of these patients, the team was able to show that reasoning and behavioral control are dependent on different regions of the frontal lobes than the areas called upon when making a decision. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-brain-lesion-patients.html Neuroscience Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:33:04 EST news264778307 Researchers at the University of Iowa, together with colleagues from the California Institute of Technology and New York University, have discovered how a part of the brain helps predict future events from past experiences. The work sheds light on the function of the front-most part of the frontal lobe, known as the frontopolar cortex, an area of the cortex uniquely well developed in humans in comparison with apes and other primates. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-front-most-cortex-involved-short-term.html Neuroscience Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:00:13 EST news259341626 Summer vacation time is upon us. If you have been saving up for your dream vacation for years, you may want to make sure your dream spot is still the best place to go. A new study has found that when we fantasize about such trips before they are possible, we tend to overlook the negatives – thus influencing our decision-making down the line. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-fantasizing-vacation-poor-decision-making.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 31 May 2012 10:52:47 EST news257680350 The next time you set a trap for that rat running around in your basement, here's something to consider: you are going up against an opponent whose ability to assess the situation and make decisions is statistically just as good as yours. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-rats-humans-decision-making-involves-combining.html Neuroscience Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:00:06 EST news250869372 Patients with advanced heart failure should have ongoing conversations with their healthcare providers to make informed decisions about treatment options that match their personal values, goals and preferences, according to a scientific statement published in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-difficult-discussions-ease-decisions-patients.html Cardiology Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:00:26 EST news250167056 When making decisions and counseling about risk and management options for deliveries between 22 and 26 weeks (periviable deliveries), obstetricians are heavily influenced by family preferences, particularly by the impression that parents consistently prefer to have everything possible done to prolong a pregnancy or "save the baby" through interventions such as cesarean section. The results of a University of Pennsylvania study are published in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-family-strongly-decision-premature-deliveries.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:30:01 EST news249884714 At New York University, Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Steve Fleming is exploring the neural basis of metacognition: how we think about thinking, and how we assess the accuracy of our decisions, judgements and other aspects of our mental performance. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-metacognition-dont.html Neuroscience Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:01:20 EST news249555665 To take a gratifying, low-paying job or a well-paid corporate position, to get married or play the field, to move across the country or stay put: The fact that most people face such choices at some point in their lives doesn’t make them any easier. No one knows the dilemma better than law students, who are poised to enter a competitive job market after staking years of study on their chosen field. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-choice-intuitive.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:11:27 EST news248947851 Testosterone makes us overvalue our own opinions at the expense of cooperation, research from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London has found. The findings may have implications for how group decisions are affected by dominant individuals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-testosterone-cooperative-egocentric.html Medical research Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:00:04 EST news247248764 Internet addiction disorder may be associated with abnormal white matter structure in the brain, as reported in the Jan. 11 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE. These structural features may be linked to behavioral impairments, and may also provide a method to study and treat the disorder. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-internet-addiction-disorder-characterized-abnormal.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:50:09 EST news245526598 A review of 16 prognostic indices used to predict risk of death in older adults in a variety of clinical settings, such as in nursing homes and hospitals, found that there is insufficient evidence to recommend the widespread use of these indices in clinical practice, according to a study in the January 11 issue of JAMA. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-accuracy-prognostic-tools-mortality-older.html Other Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:01 EST news245436485 Teenage brains undergo big changes, and they won't look or function like adult brains until well into one's 20s. In the first book on the adolescent brain and development of higher cognition, a Cornell professor helps highlight recent neuroscience discoveries about how the brain develops and their implications for real-world problems and how we teach young people and prepare them to make healthy life choices. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-teen-brains-decision.html Neuroscience Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:13:54 EST news243238417 (Medical Xpress) -- We’re not always aware of how we are making a decision. Unconscious feelings or perceptions may influence us. Another important source of information—even if we’re unaware of it—is the body itself. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-physically-affects-decision-making.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:39:51 EST news239953166 New research reveals how we make decisions. Birds choosing between berry bushes and investors trading stocks are faced with the same fundamental challenge - making optimal choices in an environment featuring varying costs and benefits. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-neuroconomics.html Neuroscience Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:52:56 EST news238413082 Take your time. Hold your horses. Sleep on it. When people must decide between arguably equal choices, they need time to deliberate. In the case of people undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease, that process sometimes doesn't kick in, leading to impulsive behavior. New research into why that happens has led scientists to a detailed explanation of how the brain devotes time to reflect on tough choices. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-deep-brain-tough-choices.html Neuroscience Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:18:25 EST news236175492 Asking three simple questions could help patients have more say and better understand their treatment options, according to University research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-patients-urged.html Health Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:06:30 EST news233571982 (Medical Xpress) -- We make decisions all our lives—so you’d think we’d get better and better at it. Yet research has shown that younger adults are better decision makers than older ones. Some Texas psychologists, puzzled by these findings, suspected the experiments were biased toward younger brains. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-decision-age-.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:38:10 EST news232879063 Patients receiving treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) prefer to play a more collaborative role when it comes to making decisions about their medical or surgical care, according to the findings of an August 3rd issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-patients-decision-making.html Other Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:20:09 EST news232027075 Visual and tactile objects in our surroundings are translated into a perception by complex interactions of neurons in the cortex. The principles underlying spatial and temporal organization of neuronal activity during decision-making and object perception are not all understood yet. Jason Kerr from Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, in collaboration with Winfried Denk from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, now investigated how different sensations are represented by measuring activity in neuronal populations deep in the cortex. The scientists developed a method, with which they can study the neuronal activity in some of the deepest layers of the cortex in rodents, something that has not been possible up until now. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-deeper-insight-cortical-cells.html Neuroscience Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:45:27 EST news229697110 Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute researchers report that it takes significantly longer for orders to forgo resuscitation in the event of cardiac arrest to be written for patients who had that decision made for them by a surrogate decision-maker compared to patients who made their own decisions, even though patients with a surrogate were sicker and the resuscitation issue might arise sooner. Among patients who died, patients with a surrogate had a shorter time frame between writing the DNR order and time of death compared to patients who made their own decisions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-dnr-longer-death-surrogate-decision-maker.html Other Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:29:07 EST news229602537 Sophisticated simulation techniques typically used for medical training could provide a powerful way of examining interactions between physicians and patients to reveal, for example, how race and other factors influence decision-making, said University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. In a study published in this month’s Critical Care Medicine, they found that hospital-based physicians did not treat black and white mock patients differently in an intensive care scenario, but they overestimated the preference for life-sustaining intervention in both groups and among blacks in particular. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-life-sustaining-treatment-decisions-end-stage-cancer.html Other Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:04:34 EST news227887424 Psychology researchers at the University of Alberta have found an interesting wrinkle in the decision- making process people use when gambling: People confronted with risky choices respond differently when they rely on past experiences, rather than when they just focus on the odds of winning or losing. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-description-experience-gap-risky-choice-limited.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:08:32 EST news226235294 If a friend or relative won $100 and then offered you a few dollars, would you accept this windfall? The logical answer would seem to be, sure, why not? "But human decision making does not always appear rational," said Read Montague, professor of physics at Virginia Tech and director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-functional-mri-mindfulness-meditation-decision-making.html Neuroscience Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:05:10 EST news222516288