Decision Neuroscience: An Integrative Perspective

Decision Neuroscience addresses fundamental questions about how the brain makes perceptual, value-based, and more complex decisions in non-social and social contexts. This book presents compelling neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesional, and neurocomputational models in combination with hormonal and genetic approaches, which have led to a clearer understanding of the neural mechanisms behind how the brain makes decisions. The five parts of the book address distinct but inter-related topics and are designed to serve both as classroom introductions to major subareas in decision neuroscience and as advanced syntheses of all that has been accomplished in the last decade.

Part I is devoted to anatomical, neurophysiological, pharmacological, and optogenetics animal studies on reinforcement-guided decision making, such as the representation of instructions, expectations, and outcomes; the updating of action values; and the evaluation process guiding choices between prospective rewards. Part II covers the topic of the neural representations of motivation, perceptual decision making, and value-based decision making in humans, combining neurcomputational models and brain imaging studies. Part III focuses on the rapidly developing field of social decision neuroscience, integrating recent mechanistic understanding of social decisions in both non-human primates and humans. Part IV covers clinical aspects involving disorders of decision making that link together basic research areas including systems, cognitive, and clinical neuroscience; this part examines dysfunctions of decision making in neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, behavioral addictions, and focal brain lesions. Part V focuses on the roles of various hormones (cortisol, oxytocin, ghrelin/leptine) and genes that underlie inter-individual differences observed with stress, food choices, and social decision-making processes. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in decision making neuroscience.

With contributions that are forward-looking assessments of the current and future issues faced by researchers, Decision Neuroscience is essential reading for anyone interested in decision-making neuroscience.

Provides comprehensive coverage of approaches to studying individual and social decision neuroscience, including primate neurophysiology, brain imaging in healthy humans and in various disorders, and genetic and hormonal influences on decision makingCovers multiple levels of analysis, from molecular mechanisms to neural-systems dynamics and computational models of how we make choicesDiscusses clinical implications of process dysfunctions, including schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, eating disorders, drug addiction, and pathological gamblingFeatures chapters from top international researchers in the field and full-color presentation throughout with numerous illustrations to highlight key concepts

Part I. Animal Studies on Rewards, Punishments, and Decision-Making

Chapter 1. Anatomy and Connectivity of the Reward Circuit

Chapter 2. Electrophysiological Correlates of Reward Processing in Dopamine Neurons

Chapter 3. Appetitive and Aversive Systems in the Amygdala

Chapter 4. Ventral Striatopallidal Pathways Involved in Appetitive and Aversive Motivational Processes

Chapter 5. Reward and Decision Encoding in Basal Ganglia: Insights From Optogenetics and Viral Tracing Studies in Rodents

Chapter 6. The Learning and Motivational Processes Controlling Goal-Directed Action and Their Neural Bases

Chapter 7. Impulsivity, Risky Choice, and Impulse Control Disorders: Animal Models

Chapter 8. Prefrontal Cortex in Decision-Making: The Perception–Action Cycle

Part II. Human Studies on Motivation, Perceptual, and Value-Based Decision-Making

Chapter 9. Reward, Value, and Salience

Chapter 10. Computational Principles of Value Coding in the Brain

Chapter 11. Spatiotemporal Characteristics and Modulators of Perceptual Decision-Making in the Human Brain

Chapter 12. Perceptual Decision-Making: What Do We Know, and What Do We Not Know?

Chapter 13. Neural Circuit Mechanisms of Value-Based Decision-Making and Reinforcement Learning

Part III. Social Decision Neuroscience

Chapter 14. Social Decision-Making in Nonhuman Primates

Chapter 15. Organization of the Social Brain in Macaques and Humans

Chapter 16. The Neural Bases of Social Influence on Valuation and Behavior

Chapter 17. Social Dominance Representations in the Human Brain

Chapter 18. Reinforcement Learning and Strategic Reasoning During Social Decision-Making

Chapter 19. Neural Control of Social Decisions: Causal Evidence From Brain Stimulation Studies

Chapter 20. The Neuroscience of Compassion and Empathy and Their Link to Prosocial Motivation and Behavior

Part IV. Human Clinical Studies Involving Dysfunctions of Reward and Decision-Making Processes

Chapter 21. Can Models of Reinforcement Learning Help Us to Understand Symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Chapter 22. The Neuropsychology of Decision-Making: A View From the Frontal Lobes

Chapter 23. Opponent Brain Systems for Reward and Punishment Learning: Causal Evidence From Drug and Lesion Studies in Humans

Chapter 24. Decision-Making and Impulse Control Disorders in Parkinson's Disease

Chapter 25. The Subthalamic Nucleus in Impulsivity

Chapter 26. Decision-Making in Anxiety and Its Disorders

Chapter 27. Decision-Making in Gambling Disorder: Understanding Behavioral Addictions

Part V. Genetic and Hormonal Influences on Motivation and Social Behavior

Chapter 28. Decision-Making in Fish: Genetics and Social Behavior

Chapter 29. Imaging Genetics in Humans: Major Depressive Disorder and Decision-Making

Chapter 30. Time-Dependent Shifts in Neural Systems Supporting Decision-Making Under Stress

Chapter 31. Oxytocin's Influence on Social Decision-Making

Chapter 32. Appetite as Motivated Choice: Hormonal and Environmental Influences

Chapter 33. Perspectives