Friday, December 20, 2013

Heads or Tails? Random Fluctuations in Brain Cell Activity May Determine Toss-Up Decisions

Padoa-Schioppa then examined how different groups of cells determine decisions between options of equal value. He showed that toss-up decisions seemed to depend on changes in the initial state of the network of neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex.

"The fluctuations in the network took place before the primates were even offered a choice of juices, but they seem to somehow bias the decision," Padoa-Schioppa said. "Neuronal signals are always noisy. In essence, close-call decisions are partly determined by random noise."


MORE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205091904.htm