Neurobiology Of Decision-making (research And Perspectives In Neurosciences)

Until now decision-making has been studied in the fields of psychology, artificial intelligence, and economics - to name just a few - while neuroscientific research has paid only little attention to it. But now the importance of decision-making has become indisputable, especially in the context of reasoning processes that culminate in the personal and social decisions that define rationality. This book contains articles by leading researchers in experimental neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, neurochemistry, neurocomputation, experimental psychology, and philosophy, discussing the contributions made by these disciplines to the emerging field of neurobiology of decision-making. Front Matter....Pages I-XI Human Neuroanatomy Relevant to Decision-Making....Pages 1-12 Morphological Correlations of Human and Monkey Frontal Lobe....Pages 13-46 Frontal Lobe and the Cognitive Foundation of Behavioral Action....Pages 47-61 Neural Mechanisms Supporting Successful Social Decisions in Simians....Pages 63-82 Neural Basis of Decision in Perception and in the Control of Movement....Pages 83-100 How the Basal Ganglia Make Decisions....Pages 101-113 The Will of the Brain: Cerebral Correlates of Willful Acts....Pages 115-123 Neuronal Models of Cognitive Functions Associated with the Prefrontal Cortex....Pages 125-144 The Biological Causes of Irrationality....Pages 145-156 Neuropsychological Approaches to Reasoning and Decision-Making....Pages 157-179 Feeling Reasons....Pages 181-199 Epilogue: Models of Decision-Making....Pages 201-206 Back Matter....Pages 207-209 Neuroscience has paid only little attention to decision-making for many years. Although no field of science has cohered around this topic, a variety of researchers in different areas of neuroscience ranging from cellular physiology to neuropsychology and computational neuroscience have been engaged in working on this issue. Thus, the time seemed to be ripe to bring these researchers together and discuss the state of the art of the neurobiology of decision-making in a broad forum. This book is a collection of contributions presented at that forum in Paris in October 1994 organized by the Fondation IPSEN.

The book contains both black-and-white and color illustrations.