Decision making process: What happens to the brain when we make decisions?

Decision-making is a complex process that we only partially understand. But we do know that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved in it, along with the areas that send the PFC inputs, or regulate these inputs: particularly the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and basal ganglia.

The prefrontal cortex receives information from many parts of the brain, and this information is the “raw material” for decision-making. Apart from sensory and motor information from various cortical and thalamic regions, the prefrontal cortex also receives emotion-related signals from the amygdala, context and memory signals from the hippocampal formation, and the results of reward/punishment related learning from basal ganglia loops. (All these functional associations only capture a part of what each of these brain areas do. The experimental data are quite complex.)

Diagrams like the ones below are tentative attempts to explain how the loop of perceiving-processing-deciding-acting might work.

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The neuronal interactions between both parts of the prefrontal cortex send connections and messages to another part of the frontal lobe known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) during flexible decision-making. People who have damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex can have a hard time making decisions.

Decision-making is in the locus of our control but heavily impacted by our emotions, context, social information. We have the power to break patterns of behavior simply by making better decisions. By knowing the neural processes, we can change our mind and our actions at any time.

Types of decision making processes

The level of the decision can be simple (linear) or complex (non-linear). It’s easy to find this out by asking:

· To who is this decision important?

· how bad would it be if the decision made is a bad decision?

· will the decision become more or less important in the future?

· how urgent or important is the issue at this very moment?

The style of the decision can be changed due to participation. Whether that means involving more people, bringing in a third party, or simply making the decision on your own, it’s important to think about who will be involved in the decision.

The decision making processes can vary between analytical and holistic, to less structured and subjective methods. Humans can be rational beings, but some factors (emotions,…) which determine the decision that isn’t always rational.

Making a decision requires both prediction and judgment. Here are a few ways to improve our decision making process:

· Be less certain. Reevaluating our overconfidence means we can engage our brain in a more analytical processing.

· Thinking about probability. Studys shared in the session show someone with simple, basic training in probability make better predictions and they avoid some certain cognitive biases. Being good with probability also helps one express uncertainty and be able to think numerically better.

· Build upon our past. It can be helpful to think about a past decision that went badly and apply what you learned from that decision to the decision needing to be made now.

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