Funahashi Shintaro
Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
Brain Nerve. 2008 Sep;60(9):1017-27.
Decision-making plays an important role in the transformation of incoming sensory information to purposeful actions. Many decisions have important biological and social consequences, while others may have a more limited impact on our everyday life. The neural mechanisms of decision-making currently constitute an important subject under intense investigation in the field of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. Among the investigations, on this topic, those involving sensory discrimination tasks using visual motion have provided a wealth of information about the nature of the neural circuitry required to perform perceptual decision-making. For example, by using a motion discrimination task, Shadlen and Newsome have shown an essential role of area LIP in perceptual decision-making. On the other hand, the importance of reward and reward expectations as determinants of decision-making is increasingly appreciated. In particular, reinforcement learning and economic theories, such as game theory, have provided valuable insights into the brain functions related to decision-making. By using a competitive game analogous to matching pennies against a computer, Lee's group showed that in monkeys, previous selections modulated prefrontal neural activity and that this modulation affected the current choice behavior. The prefrontal cortex has been shown to participate in decision-making in free-choice conditions. By using a task involving the free choice of 1 target from multiple saccade targets, Funahashi's group examined the prefrontal participation in decision-making in a free-choice condition. They compared the activities of prefrontal neurons during an oculomotor delay task with forced-choice conditions and free-choice conditions and identified the neural components reflecting the underlying decision-making processes. Although several attempts have been made to understand the neural mechanisms of decision-making, further investigations are required to fully understand these mechanisms. Future studies should evaluate the effects of emotions on decision-making and attempt to integrate the neurophysiological, psychological, and computational approaches to decision-making.
决策在将传入的感官信息转化为有目的的行动过程中起着重要作用。许多决策具有重要的生物学和社会后果，而其他一些决策可能对我们的日常生活影响较小。目前，决策的神经机制是认知和行为神经科学领域中一个正在深入研究的重要课题。在关于这个主题的研究中，那些涉及使用视觉运动进行感官辨别任务的研究，已经提供了大量关于执行感知决策所需神经回路性质的信息。例如，通过使用运动辨别任务，沙德伦和纽瑟姆已经证明了外侧顶内沟区（LIP）在感知决策中的重要作用。另一方面，奖励和奖励预期作为决策决定因素的重要性越来越受到重视。特别是，强化学习和经济理论，如博弈论，为与决策相关的大脑功能提供了有价值的见解。通过使用一种类似于与计算机玩猜硬币的竞争游戏，李的研究小组表明，在猴子中，先前的选择会调节前额叶神经活动，并且这种调节会影响当前的选择行为。前额叶皮层已被证明参与自由选择条件下的决策。通过使用一个从多个扫视目标中自由选择1个目标的任务，舟桥的研究小组研究了前额叶在自由选择条件下对决策的参与情况。他们比较了眼动延迟任务中前额叶神经元在强制选择条件和自由选择条件下的活动，并确定了反映潜在决策过程的神经成分。尽管已经进行了几次尝试来理解决策的神经机制，但仍需要进一步研究以全面理解这些机制。未来的研究应该评估情绪对决策的影响，并尝试整合神经生理学、心理学和决策的计算方法。
