The neurobiology of decision making: The best-laid plans of mice and primates

Presented online on October 12, 2020 at 11:15 a.m.Dr. Shadlen is a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. He seeks to understand the brain’s neural mechanisms responsible for reasoning and decision making, as a window on cognition. Using a combination of electrophysiology, imaging, behavior, and computational methods, Shadlen and his team are working in non-human primates and mice to elucidate the neural mechanisms responsible for such tasks as integrating evidence from diverse sources, assigning weight, calculating costs and benefits of anticipated outcomes, processing time, and implementing rules.Runtime: 70:06 minutesMany decisions arise through an accumulation of evidence to a terminating threshold. The process provides a unified account of the choice (e.g., accuracy) and the amount of time taken to complete it. It also provides a unified account of confidence, vacillation, changes of mind and the incorporation of prior bias. The computations are supported by neural mechanisms that operate in association areas of the primate brain. A working hypothesis is that the neural mechanisms that underlie primate decision maki