Grant: Operating Grant

We make many decisions, large and small, every day, yet know very little about the brain processes that underlie these decisions. What brain mechanisms allow us to calculate the value of possible options, and to weigh that value against the costs (such as time and effort) of a particular course of action? This research will help to answer these questions, by examining how specific regions within the brain's frontal lobes are involved in the basic building blocks of decision making. This work is done with the help of patients who have suffered injury to specific parts of the frontal lobes, and so also provides a better understanding of why such patients have problems with motivation, judgment, and decision making in their everyday lives. In addition, this research has implications for understanding the brain basis of common psychiatric conditions that are characterized by poor decisions, such as drug addiction.