Every day, our brain makes thousands of decisions, big and small. Any of these decisions - from the least consequential such as picking a restaurant to the more important such as pursuing a different career or moving to a new city - may result in better or worse outcomes.
- By CATHERINE CARUSO
How does the brain gauge risk and reward in making these calls? The answer to this question continues to puzzle scientists, but a new study carried out by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard University offers intriguing clues.
The research, published Feb. 19 in Nature and supported in part by federal funding, incorporated machine-learning concepts into mouse experiments to study the brain circuitry that supports reward-based decisions.
The scientists uncovered two groups of brain cells in mice: one that helps mice learn about above-average outcomes and another associated with below-average outcomes. Together, the experiments showed, these cells allow the brain to gauge the full range of possible rewards associated with a choice.
"Our results suggest that mice - and by extension, other mammals - seem to be representing more fine-grained details about risk and reward than we thought before," said co-senior author Jan Drugowitsch, associate professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.
