Scientists Find Brain Cells Linked to Choice

An anonymous reader writes "Scotsman.com is reporting that Harvard Medical researchers may have found the neurons, or brain cells, that play a role in a persons ability to choose between different items. From the article: 'Scientists have known that cells in different parts of the brain react to attributes such as color, taste or quantity. Dr Camillo Padaoa-Schioppa and John Assad, an associate professor of neurobiology, found neurons involved in assigning values that help people to make choices.'"

Comments

Does genetics make our choices?

[crazyjeremy]

An interesting article indeed.

I personally feel that there are so many "disorders" these days, that people often find a crutch for every vice and desire. Instead of working tochange for the better, people say "That's the way I am... I can't change."

Some of these people may think this article proves that thought. I for one, feel it supports the opposite.

From the article:

"The monkey's choice may be based on the activity of these neurons," said Padoa-Schioppa. Earlier research involving the OFC showed that lesions in the area seem to have an association with eating disorders, compulsive gambling and unusual social behaviour. The new findings show an association between the activity of the OFC and the mental valuation process underlying choice behaviour, according to the scientists."

I think people still have choices regardless of the addiction they suffer from (OCD disorders, Serial Killer, Gambling, etc.) A person doesn't HAVE TO Gamble, but it feels that way. He doesn't HAVE TO wash his hands 5 times, but he thinks he does.

These abnormalities or "lesions" in our brains may make us feel we do not have a choice. In reality if we are honest with ourselves and we work hard to overcome these urges, we can overcome almost any adversity, vice or compulsion.

Re:Does genetics make our choices?

[the_humeister]

I guess it depends on if you believe that reductionism is true. Thus if we reduce all of our actions and decisions to physical phenomena, we're probably going to find that none of our actions are a matter of "choice." Rather, the actions we take are inevitable given the exact state that our brain is in and the exact environment we are in.

Ahh, free will

[brian0918]

It's time for the age-old debate about man's free will. Does it exist, or are we just kidding ourselves? Is the consciousness an intact "entity" within the brain, or is it simply the end result of external stimuli influencing choices? One thing is for sure: neuroscience is making it more difficult for a spirit to hide in our mushy insides. Eventually, we'll know for sure how the brain works. For now, we are stuck with debating the definitions of words like soul, freedom, consciousness, etc...

I do not understand

[thePig]

Shouldnt memory play a role in this?
I was under the impression that memory (basically hippocampus and amygdala) was the reason we chose items.
For example -
Grape - Appropriate synapses of the looks of the grape colour,look etc all get burned up in hippocampus
Also, when we eat it - the synapses for amygdala set for pleasure also gets set up.
Also a combination path way neuron for both also gets hardened due to electrons going there - (in hippocampus).
Now next time I see a grape, this compination path gets a signal when we see a grape - so a signal goes to the other one (for pleasure also), thus the memory of pleasurable experience when a grape is eaten comes to me.
This is memory.

Now, for a choice, depending on the amount of pleasure, my synapses fire more and I go for that.
For example - if there is bittergourd and grape, I will go for grape only.
I thought the monkeys choice depended on these neurons rather than the one they speak about.

Or is this the intelligent choice they are talking about - where in I go for bittergourd instead due to the higeher nutrition content ??? .. I thought that also could be expressed in the earlier way mentioned.

Free will, souls, adn the brain

[plunge]

There have been many fascinating finds in this field over just the last couple of years, from the discovery that you can externally trigger feelings of volition to be associated with artificially stimulated actions (i.e. make you feel like you CHOSE to move your arm, when in fact it was the scientists stimulating your nerves), to the discovery that religious ecstasy can be likewise triggered.

In all of this, I've always been confused by those that suggest that human consciousness is better explained by a soul or free will. As far as I can tell, neither "Free Will" nor "soul" actually explain ANYTHING about conscious volition. Certainly, conscious experience is a philosophical mystery: what is it, and why is it? Nobody knows. But simply referencing some random word like "soul" and noting that it is supernatural doesn't explain anything. It's not that the rules of the natural world are too restrictive to allow "free will" or "conscious experience" to work. It's that we have no idea what they are or how they work at all. So positing some supernatural realm where anything is possible doesn't help, or advance our knowledge even a bit.

Free will is actually even more bizarre, because although many people claim we have it, no one seems able to actually define what it is or what difference having free will vs. not having it would make. In short, it appears that the concept is completely incoherent and self-contradictory. It's one thing to be free to make choices for yourself, according to your own volition. But that's not what the strong "Free Will" concept is: even computers can make choices for themselves. Strong Free Will posits that people somehow make choices independently of.... well what? Independently of their own natures? That makes no sense! If there isn't some underlying deterministic substrate to my choices, how can they be mine at all? How can I be responsible if you can't causally track my choices back to some "me."

In short, "Free Will" makes no sense as a concept, and offers no explanatory value for anything. It's SOLE purpose seems to be in theological arguments, a bit of handwaving to avoid having a designer be responsible for the nature of his own designs.

Continuum.

[khasim]

Thus if we reduce all of our actions and decisions to physical phenomena, we're probably going to find that none of our actions are a matter of "choice."

At the far extreme of disfunction, I think that that might be valid. It isn't easy to believe that someone chooses to be schizophrenic.

Rather, the actions we take are inevitable given the exact state that our brain is in and the exact environment we are in.

And that's the key.

If this is valid, then the animals with the same neurological structure would make the same choices, right?

So far, all that's been shown is that damaging an area of the brain results in failures to react to certain distinguishing features.

Do monkeys with brain pattern X always choose apple juice? But monkeys with brain pattern Y always choose grape juice? And monkeys with brain pattern Z always choose orange juice?

The same with choosing to gamble. Why does someone choose ponies over blackjack?

So you think you aren't free?

[wytcld]

If you honestly believe you're not free, there are a number of things you might as well stop doing:

1. Why do you consciously try to deliberate over any choices? If you are not free, that effort you're putting forth - to the extent, you know, that you have decided to try to deliberate, is at best an epiphenomenal waste. So why not save the effort? On the one hand, that epiphenomenal sense of your own agency can't really do anything in the physical world, right? On the other, for the epiphenomenal to exist it must be draining energy from the actually useful parts of the brain, which might be able to run their deterministic algorithm better if you weren't shunting that energy into the appearance of phenomenal consciousness, with its illusion of free agency and all that. So why not just give it up?

2. The next time you blame your girlfriend or boyfriend or boss for anything, why bother? After all, they have no freedom in what they do. It was all determined from the beginning of time (if not before). So why not just give it up?

3. When others of us say that we believe - no, we know that we are free agents, in ways that are beyond Newtonian causal physics (although not beyond some interpretations of quantum theory, e.g. Henry Stapp's or Roger Penrose's), it is absolutely determined that we will be saying these things. You could not possibly persuade us to freely change our minds through conscious deliberation on these questions. So why not just give it up?

What these experiments may show is that the weights of particular desires are represented in particular cells in particular regions. Did you think, for instance, that thirst wouldn't be represented somewhere in the brain? What they don't (and probably can't) show is that it is merely a certain "weight" of thirst, balanced against certain "weights" of other desires, that results in action in some deterministic way. Think of it like a dashboard. There's a certain "weight" of the gas running low, a certain "weight" of the speed you're going, a certain "weight" of the oil light coming on, and even the "weight" of how many miles are on the vehicle. None of these prevent your free operation of the wheel and pedals (until the gas runs out, or a cop stops you, or the engine blows a rod, or the transmission falls on the road). Why should a dashboard in the mind representing how thirsty you are, how horny you are, how clever you think you are with your doubting of the common sense about our freedom ... why should the mere presense of any of these representations in physical instantiation imply any diminishment of your capacity to will? I'd rather say the more representations on the dashboard, the more the driver is freely in control.