In her second talk, Churchland outlines her group’s studies of the relationship between decision-making and action. She notes that in addition to methods to track neural activity, high-resolution videos of the decision-making process in mice provide valuable movement data. Using labeled calcium to visualize neural activity across the dorsal cortex, Churchland’s group finds that maps of the visual world are represented up to six times in each mouse brain! The Churchland group also found that neural activity appeared to be the same across novice and expert decision-makers. They developed a mathematical model to predict the influence of numerous variables on neural activity and found that movement-related variables accounted for a greater proportion of the variance in neural activity than decision-related variables. Specifically, spontaneous (non-instructed) movements had the greatest predicted influence on neural activity. They then validated their results at the single-neuron level using two-photon microscopy. Dr. Churchland ends her talk by highlighting a significant remaining question: what are the neural differences between novice and expert decision-makers?
View the full talk with additional resources on our website
Decision-Making in the Brain
Anne Churchland shares her research on what happens in the brain when it makes decisions. (Talk recorded in November 2018)
- Part 1: How Do Brains Decide?Audience:
- Student
- Researcher
- Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
- Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Duration: 00:38:56 - Part 2: Connecting Movements & Neural Activity During Decision-MakingAudience:
- Researcher
- Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Duration: 00:36:54