WIKIMEDIA, PEMELETHumans and many other animals are generally risk-averse, meaning they will usually choose stable, certain rewards over risky ones, even if the average payoff from both options is the same. Now, researchers at Stanford University have identified—and manipulated—a specific signal in the brains of rats that determines risky behavior just before the animals make a decision. The findings were published yesterday (March 23) in Nature.
“It turns out you can explain a large part of whether rats were risky or not by this particular signal at this particular time,” study coauthor Karl Deisseroth of Stanford told The New York Times. “We saw it happen, and then we were able to provide that signal, and then see that we could drive the behavior causally.”
Previous research had suggested that an area of the forebrain called the nucleus accumbens plays an important role in decision-making. Part of the reward system of the brain, this region contains neurons with receptors for dopamine, a chemical producing feelings of pleasure.
To investigate the role of these neurons in risky decision-making, the researchers implanted an optical fiber into the nucleus accumbens of 17 rats. They then ...
