scholarly journals Decision Making byDrosophilaFlies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius Adler ◽  
Lar L. Vang
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Drosophila Melanogaster ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Behavioral Response ◽  
Room Temperature ◽  
Methyl Eugenol ◽  
Central Complex ◽  
Original Parent ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACT“Decision making has all the secrets of everything: who we are, what we do, how we navigate the world.” “How Do I Decide? The Brain with David Eagleman”, 2015.When presented with attractant (light) together with an amount of repellent (methyl eugenol) that exceeds attractant,Drosophila melanogasterfruit flies are of course repelled, but nine mutants have now been isolated that were not repelled. Although able to respond to attractant alone and to repellent alone, these mutants fail to make a decision when the two are together during the first two months of the study. They are considered defective in a decision-making mechanism. The defect occurs at 34°C but not at room temperature, so these are conditional mutants. Efforts at genetic mapping have been made. Our aim is to discover how decision making gets accomplished and how this results in a behavioral response. We indicate that there is a mechanistic relationship between decision making and the central complex inDrosophilaand between decision making and the prefrontal cortex in humans and other vertebrates.Over a period of six months these mutants changed into ones that are attracted when presented with attractant together with what was overpowering repellent before. Nearly full attraction was achieved at fifteen to thirty days. With attractant alone these mutants were attracted like the original parent and with repellents alone they were repelled like the original parent. The mutants have been genetically mapped.

scholarly journals Exploring the Inner Workings of Neuron Circuits That Exhibit Persistent Activity To Explain How Working Memory and Executive Function Are Implemented in The Brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Persistent Activity ◽  
Storage Mechanism ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
Task Processing ◽  
The Brain

In this research we explore in detail how a phenomenon called sustained persistent activity is achieved by circuits of interconnected neurons. Persistent activity is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied (Papoutsi et al. 2013; Kaminski et. al. 2017; McCormick et al. 2003; Rahman, and Berger, 2011). Persistent activity consists in neuron circuits whose spiking activity remains even after the initial stimuli are removed. Persistent activity has been found in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and has been correlated to working memory and decision making (Clayton E. Curtis and Daeyeol Lee, 2010). We go beyond the explanation of how persistent activity happens and show how arrangements of those basic circuits encode and store data and are used to perform more elaborated tasks and computations. The purpose of the model we propose here is to describe the minimum number of neurons and their interconnections required to explain persistent activity and how this phenomenon is actually a fast storage mechanism required for implementing working memory, task processing and decision making.

scholarly journals Activation of Prefrontal Cortex in Process of Oral and Finger Shape Discrimination: fNIRS Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriyuki Narita ◽  
Kazunobu Kamiya ◽  
Sunao Iwaki ◽  
Tomohiro Ishii ◽  
Hiroshi Endo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Shape Discrimination ◽  
Motor Sequence ◽  
Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Reliable Representation ◽  
The Brain

BackgroundThe differences in the brain activities of the insular and the visual association cortices have been reported between oral and manual stereognosis. However, these results were not conclusive because of the inherent differences in the task performance-related motor sequence conditions. We hypothesized that the involvement of the prefrontal cortex may be different between finger and oral shape discrimination. This study was conducted to clarify temporal changes in prefrontal activities occurring in the processes of oral and finger tactual shape discrimination using prefrontal functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).MethodsSix healthy right-handed males [aged 30.8 ± 8.2 years (mean ± SD)] were enrolled. Measurements of prefrontal activities were performed using a 22-channel fNIRS device (ETG-100, Hitachi Medical Co., Chiba, Japan) during experimental blocks that included resting state (REST), nonsense shape discrimination (SHAM), and shape discrimination (SHAPE).ResultsNo significant difference was presented with regard to the number of correct answers during trials between oral and finger SHAPE discrimination. Additionally, a statistical difference for the prefrontal fNIRS activity between oral and finger shape discrimination was noted in CH 1. Finger SHAPE, as compared with SHAM, presented a temporally shifting onset and burst in the prefrontal activities from the frontopolar area (FPA) to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In contrast, oral SHAPE as compared with SHAM was shown to be temporally overlapped in the onset and burst of the prefrontal activities in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)/FPA/OFC.ConclusionThe prefrontal activities temporally shifting from the FPA to the OFC during SHAPE as compared with SHAM may suggest the segregated serial prefrontal processing from the manipulation of a target image to the decision making during the process of finger shape discrimination. In contrast, the temporally overlapped prefrontal activities of the DLPFC/FPA/OFC in the oral SHAPE block may suggest the parallel procession of the repetitive involvement of generation, manipulation, and decision making in order to form a reliable representation of target objects.

Relational Dynamics

2017 ◽  
pp. 128-151
Author(s):  
David Stefan Bathory
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Rural Tourism ◽  
Intergenerational Effects ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Mass Trauma ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
The Brain

The effects of global warming are becoming apparent through- out the world. Europe has begun to experience more severe winters and increased rain (Steffen, 2011). Massive flooding in South Eastern Europe has devastated communities and repeatedly strains the economy of these regions resulting in mass trauma to the residents of multiple countries (Sito-Sucic & Djurica, 2014). Intergenerational effects of trauma (Bathory & Celik, 2014; Kaitz, Levy, Ebstein, Faraone, & Mankuta, 2009) have been noted to be an increasing world-wide concern. These traumatic effects are not only psychologically based but result in structural and functional changes within the brain and body (D. Bathory, 2012; D. S. Bathory, 2013a, 2013b; van der Kolk, Roth, Pelcovitz, Sunday, & Spinazzola, 2005). This chapter explores the application of decision making and Relational Dynamics to mass victims of floods by creating healing sites of sustainable energy and rural tourism to assist mass victims of natural disaster flooding.

scholarly journals Inferred Model of the Prefrontal Cortex Activity Unveils Cell Assemblies and Memory Replay

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Tavoni ◽  
Ulisse Ferrari ◽  
Francesco Paolo Battaglia ◽  
Simona Cocco ◽  
Rémi Monasson
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Statistical Physics ◽  
Cell Assembly ◽  
Information Representation ◽  
Effective Coupling ◽  
Cell Assemblies ◽  
The Brain

Cell assemblies are thought to be the units of information representation in the brain, yet their detection from experimental data is arduous. Here, we propose to infer effective coupling networks and model distributions for the activity of simultaneously recorded neurons in prefrontal cortex, during the performance of a decision-making task, and during preceding and following sleep epochs. Our approach, inspired from statistical physics, allows us to define putative cell assemblies as the groups of co-activated neurons in the models of the three recorded epochs. It reveals the existence of task-related changes of the effective couplings between the sleep epochs. The assemblies which strongly coactivate during the task epoch are found to replay during subsequent sleep, in correspondence to the changes of the inferred network. Across sessions, a variety of different network scenarios is observed, providing insight in cell assembly formation and replay.

scholarly journals Geometry of neural computation unifies working memory and planning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Ehrlich ◽  
John D. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Real World ◽  
Recurrent Neural Networks ◽  
Neural Computation ◽  
Neural Data ◽  
The Brain

Real-world tasks require coordination of working memory, decision making, and planning, yet these cognitive functions have disproportionately been studied as independent modular processes in the brain. Here we propose that contingency representations, defined as mappings for how future behaviors depend on upcoming events, can unify working memory and planning computations. We designed a task capable of disambiguating distinct types of representations. Our experiments revealed that human behavior is consistent with contingency representations, and not with traditional sensory models of working memory. In task-optimized recurrent neural networks we investigated possible circuit mechanisms for contingency representations and found that these representations can explain neurophysiological observations from prefrontal cortex during working memory tasks. Finally, we generated falsifiable predictions for neural data to identify contingency representations in neural data and to dissociate different models of working memory. Our findings characterize a neural representational strategy that can unify working memory, planning, and context-dependent decision making.

Economic Decision Making, Emotion, and Prefrontal Cortex

2016 ◽  
pp. 122-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salim Lahmiri
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Economic Decision ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

How diverse regions of the brain are coordinated to produce objective-directed decision is the essence of neuroeconomics. Indeed, the latter is a formal framework to describe the involvement of numerous brain regions including frontal, cingulate, parietal cortex, and striatum in economic and financial decision-making process. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the relationship between economic decision making and emotion on one hand, and the relationship between economic decision making and prefrontal cortex on the other hand.

Prefrontal Cortex

2017 ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Xiao-Jing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Pyramidal Neurons ◽  
Synaptic Integration ◽  
Input Output ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Inhibitory Circuit ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
The Brain

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuits are characterized by several distinct features. First, the input–output connections of a PFC circuit with the rest of the brain are extraordinarily extensive. In the primates, pyramidal neurons in PFC are greatly more spinous than in the primary sensory areas, so they have a much larger capacity for synaptic integration. Second, PFC areas are endowed with strong intrinsic recurrent connections that are sufficient to generate reverberatory activity underlying working memory and decision-making. Third, excitation and inhibition are balanced dynamically. Unlike early sensory cortical areas, in the frontal areas of both monkey and mouse, the synaptic inhibitory circuit is predominated by GABAergic cell subclasses that are dedicated to controlling inputs to, rather than outputs from, pyramidal neurons, likely reflecting the functional demand of selectively gating input pathways into the PFC in accordance with the behavioral context and goals.

Perception from Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-82
Author(s):  
György Buzsáki
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Physiological Mechanism ◽  
Corollary Discharge ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

The outside-in framework inevitably poses the question: What comes between perception and action? The homunculus with its decision-making power produces unavoidable logical consequences from the separation of perception from action. I promote the alternative view that things and events in the world can acquire meaning only through brain-initiated actions. In this process, the brain builds a simplified, customized model of the world by encoding the relationships of events to each other. I introduce the concept of “corollary discharge,” the main physiological mechanism that grounds the sensory input to make it an experience. This is a comparator mechanism that allows the brain to examine the relationship between a true change in the sensory input and a change due to self-initiated movement of the sensors.

scholarly journals Learning of distant state predictions by the orbitofrontal cortex in humans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Elliott Wimmer ◽  
Christian Büchel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
Important Region ◽  
Y Maze ◽  
Hippocampal Activity ◽  
The World ◽  
Directed Learning ◽  
Long Timescales ◽  
The Brain

AbstractRepresentations of our future environment are essential for planning and decision making. Previous research in humans has demonstrated that the hippocampus is a critical region for forming and retrieving associations, while the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is an important region for representing information about recent states. However, it is not clear how the brain acquires predictive representations during goal-directed learning. Here, we show using fMRI that while participants learned to find rewards in multiple different Y-maze environments, hippocampal activity was highest during initial exposure and then decayed across the remaining repetitions of each maze, consistent with a role in rapid encoding. Importantly, multivariate patterns in the OFC-VPFC came to represent predictive information about upcoming states approximately 30 seconds in the future. Our findings provide a mechanism by which the brain can build models of the world that span long-timescales to make predictions.

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