“You see a sweater for sale and think, ‘I have to have that!’ Clint Kilts wants to know why.
Kilts, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, is investigating the underlying neural organization that governs personal preferences and the decision-making process. Regarding a product, there’s not a lot of conscious deliberation, he says. People decide quickly whether they like something.” —The Scientist
Brain Area Identified That Weighs Rewards:
By studying how monkeys choose to look at lighted targets for juice rewards, neurobiologists have identified a still-mysterious region of the cerebral cortex as an area that judges the value of rewards, and adjusts that value as circumstances change.
The finding adds a significant piece to the puzzle of how the brain is wired to make judgments, perhaps even moral judgments, about the outside world, said the researchers. The findings may also have implications for understanding a number of neurological disorders, said the scientists. Damage to the area the researchers studied — called the posterior cingulate cortex — has been linked to cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, as well as pathologies of stroke, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and spatial disorientation. —Duke Med News
