scholarly journals A circuit mechanism for decision-making biases and NMDA receptor hypofunction

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Edward Cavanagh ◽  
Norman H Lam ◽  
John D Murray ◽  
Laurence Tudor Hunt ◽  
Steven Wayne Kennerley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nmda Receptor ◽  
Neuropsychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Inhibitory Neurons ◽  
Normal Behaviour ◽  
Cortical Excitation ◽  
Pharmacological Manipulations ◽  
Decision Making Biases ◽  
Evidence Integration

Decision-making biases can be features of normal behaviour, or deficits underlying neuropsychiatric symptoms. We used behavioural psychophysics, spiking-circuit modelling and pharmacological manipulations to explore decision-making biases during evidence integration. Monkeys showed a pro-variance bias (PVB): a preference to choose options with more variable evidence. The PVB was also present in a spiking circuit model, revealing a potential neural mechanism for this behaviour. To model possible effects of NMDA receptor (NMDA-R) antagonism on this behaviour, we simulated the effects of NMDA-R hypofunction onto either excitatory or inhibitory neurons in the model. These were then tested experimentally using the NMDA-R antagonist ketamine, a pharmacological model of schizophrenia. Ketamine yielded an increase in subjects’ PVB, consistent with lowered cortical excitation/inhibition balance from NMDA-R hypofunction predominantly onto excitatory neurons. These results provide a circuit-level mechanism that bridges across explanatory scales, from the synaptic to the behavioural, in neuropsychiatric disorders where decision-making biases are prominent.

scholarly journals A circuit mechanism for irrationalities in decision-making and NMDA receptor hypofunction: behaviour, computational modelling, and pharmacology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean E. Cavanagh ◽  
Norman H. Lam ◽  
John D. Murray ◽  
Laurence T. Hunt ◽  
Steven W. Kennerley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nmda Receptor ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Neuropsychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Inhibitory Neuron ◽  
Circuit Model ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
Neuron Function ◽  
Decision Making Biases

AbstractDecision-making biases can be systematic features of normal behaviour, or deficits underlying neuropsychiatric symptoms. We used behavioural psychophysics, spiking-circuit modelling and pharmacological manipulations to explore decision-making biases in health and disease. Monkeys performed an evidence integration task in which they showed a pro-variance bias (PVB): a preference to choose options with more variable evidence. The PVB was also present in a spiking circuit model, revealing a neural mechanism for this behaviour. Because NMDA receptor (NMDA-R) hypofunction is a leading hypothesis for neuropathology in schizophrenia, we simulated behavioural effects of NMDA-R hypofunction onto either excitatory or inhibitory neurons in the model. These were tested experimentally using the NMDA-R antagonist ketamine, yielding changes in decision-making consistent with lowered cortical excitation/inhibition balance from NMDA-R hypofunction onto excitatory neurons. These results provide a circuit-level mechanism that bridges across explanatory scales, from the synaptic to the behavioural, in neuropsychiatric disorders where decision-making biases are prominent.SignificancePeople can make apparently irrational decisions because of underlying features in their decision circuitry. Deficits in the same neural circuits may also underlie debilitating cognitive symptoms of neuropsychiatric patients. Here, we reveal a neural circuit mechanism explaining an irrationality frequently observed in healthy humans making binary choices – the pro-variance bias. Our circuit model could be perturbed by introducing deficits in either excitatory or inhibitory neuron function. These two perturbations made specific, dissociable predictions for the types of irrational decisionmaking behaviour produced. We used the NMDA-R antagonist ketamine, an experimental model for schizophrenia, to test if these predictions were relevant to neuropsychiatric pathophysiology. The results were consistent with impaired excitatory neuron function, providing important new insights into the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

scholarly journals Author response: A circuit mechanism for decision-making biases and NMDA receptor hypofunction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Edward Cavanagh ◽  
Norman H Lam ◽  
John D Murray ◽  
Laurence Tudor Hunt ◽  
Steven Wayne Kennerley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nmda Receptor ◽  
Author Response ◽  
Decision Making Biases

scholarly journals Decision letter: A circuit mechanism for decision-making biases and NMDA receptor hypofunction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Tsetsos ◽  
Valentin Wyart
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nmda Receptor ◽  
Decision Making Biases

Understanding Decision-Making Biases in Psychopathy: A Psychopharmacological Perspective

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimia Honarmand ◽  
Stephanie Bass ◽  
Martina-Christina Kalahani-Bargis ◽  
David S. Nussbaum
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Biases

Decision-making through evidence integration at long timescales

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Waskom ◽  
Roozbeh Kiani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Long Timescales ◽  
Evidence Integration

Would you Make the Right Decision? – Decision Making Biases in Economy - Related Dilemmas

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Gödör ◽  
Georgina Szabó
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Framing Effect ◽  
Economic Knowledge ◽  
Bank Account ◽  
Financial Decisions ◽  
Hungarian Population ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Decision Making Biases

Abstract As they say, money can’t buy happiness. However, the lack of it can make people’s lives much harder. From the moment we open our first bank account, we have to make lots of financial decisions in our life. Should I save some money or should I spend it? Is it a good idea to ask for a loan? How to invest my money? When we make such decisions, unfortunately we sometimes make mistakes, too. In this study, we selected seven common decision making biases - anchoring and adjustment, overconfidence, high optimism, the law of small numbers, framing effect, disposition effect and gambler’s fallacy – and tested them on the Hungarian population via an online survey. In the focus of our study was the question whether the presence of economic knowledge helps people make better decisions? The decision making biases found in literature mostly appeared in the sample as well. It proves that people do apply them when making decisions and in certain cases this could result in serious and costly errors. That’s why it would be absolutely important for people to learn about them, thus increasing their awareness and attention when making decisions. Furthermore, in our research we did find some connection between decisions and the knowledge of economics, people with some knowledge of economics opted for the better solution in bigger proportion

The Cognitive and Neural Mechanism of Ambiguity Decision-making

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 364
Author(s):  
Fenghua ZHANG ◽  
Yuting ZHANG ◽  
Ling XIANG ◽  
Zhujing HU
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Mechanism

scholarly journals Complete cognitive recovery in a severe case of anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor encephalitis treated with electroconvulsive therapy

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. e233772
Author(s):  
Cæcilie Leding ◽  
Lisbet Marstrand ◽  
Anders Jorgensen
Keyword(s):  
Nmda Receptor ◽  
Electroconvulsive Therapy ◽  
Neuropsychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Severe Case ◽  
Cognitive Outcome ◽  
Term Outcome ◽  
Long Term Outcome ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Nmda Receptor Encephalitis

Anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor encephalitis usually presents with prominent neuropsychiatric symptoms and many patients experience cognitive sequelae. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been suggested as a part of the treatment, particularly for catatonia, but concerns that ECT may worsen the cognitive function and long-term outcome may limit its use. We present a case of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis with severe neuropsychiatric manifestations including refractory catatonia and behavioural change. A pre-ECT neuropsychological assessment revealed dysfunction in multiple cognitive domains in spite of intensive pharmacological treatment. Twenty days after the ninth and last ECT treatment, the patient underwent the same neuropsychological tests, which showed normalised test results within all cognitive domains and no need of rehabilitation. The case demonstrates that the use of ECT in anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis with severe pretreatment cognitive dysfunction can be associated with a highly favourable cognitive outcome.

scholarly journals Hierarchical decision processes that operate over distinct timescales underlie choice and changes in strategy

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (31) ◽  
pp. E4531-E4540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Braden A. Purcell ◽  
Roozbeh Kiani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Decision Strategy ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Hierarchical Decision ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level

Decision-making in a natural environment depends on a hierarchy of interacting decision processes. A high-level strategy guides ongoing choices, and the outcomes of those choices determine whether or not the strategy should change. When the right decision strategy is uncertain, as in most natural settings, feedback becomes ambiguous because negative outcomes may be due to limited information or bad strategy. Disambiguating the cause of feedback requires active inference and is key to updating the strategy. We hypothesize that the expected accuracy of a choice plays a crucial rule in this inference, and setting the strategy depends on integration of outcome and expectations across choices. We test this hypothesis with a task in which subjects report the net direction of random dot kinematograms with varying difficulty while the correct stimulus−response association undergoes invisible and unpredictable switches every few trials. We show that subjects treat negative feedback as evidence for a switch but weigh it with their expected accuracy. Subjects accumulate switch evidence (in units of log-likelihood ratio) across trials and update their response strategy when accumulated evidence reaches a bound. A computational framework based on these principles quantitatively explains all aspects of the behavior, providing a plausible neural mechanism for the implementation of hierarchical multiscale decision processes. We suggest that a similar neural computation—bounded accumulation of evidence—underlies both the choice and switches in the strategy that govern the choice, and that expected accuracy of a choice represents a key link between the levels of the decision-making hierarchy.

scholarly journals Dissociable roles of cortical excitation-inhibition balance during patch-leaving versus value-guided decisions

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca F. Kaiser ◽  
Theo O. J. Gruendler ◽  
Oliver Speck ◽  
Lennart Luettgau ◽  
Gerhard Jocham
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Mutual Inhibition ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Cortical Excitation ◽  
The Cost

AbstractIn a dynamic world, it is essential to decide when to leave an exploited resource. Such patch-leaving decisions involve balancing the cost of moving against the gain expected from the alternative patch. This contrasts with value-guided decisions that typically involve maximizing reward by selecting the current best option. Patterns of neuronal activity pertaining to patch-leaving decisions have been reported in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), whereas competition via mutual inhibition in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is thought to underlie value-guided choice. Here, we show that the balance between cortical excitation and inhibition (E/I balance), measured by the ratio of GABA and glutamate concentrations, plays a dissociable role for the two kinds of decisions. Patch-leaving decision behaviour relates to E/I balance in dACC. In contrast, value-guided decision-making relates to E/I balance in vmPFC. These results support mechanistic accounts of value-guided choice and provide evidence for a role of dACC E/I balance in patch-leaving decisions.

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