Important Brain Regions for Decision-Making
- Reviewed8 May 2023
- Author Marissa Fessenden
- Source BrainFacts/SfN
You make many different types of decisions every day. Some of these rely primarily on logical reasoning — for example, when you compare the timetables for the bus and subway to determine the quickest way to get to a friend’s house. Other decisions have emotional consequences at stake, like when the person you’re trying to impress offers you a cigarette — your desire to be accepted might outweigh your rational consideration of smoking’s harms.
Decision-making requires a person to weigh values, understand rules, make plans, and form predictions about the outcomes of their choices. Both logical reasoning and emotional (affective) decision-making involve the brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC). In particular, activity in the lateral PFC is especially important in overriding emotional responses during decision-making. The area’s strong connections with brain regions related to motivation and emotion, such as the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, seem to exert a sort of top-down control over emotional and impulsive responses. For example, brain imaging studies have found the lateral PFC is more active in people declining a small monetary reward given immediately in favor of receiving a larger reward in the future. This is one of the last areas of the brain to mature — usually in a person’s late 20s — which explains why teens sometimes may have trouble regulating emotions or controlling impulses.
The orbitofrontal cortex, a region of the PFC located just behind the eyes, also appears to be important in affective decision-making, especially in situations involving reward and punishment. The area has been implicated in addiction as well as social behavior.
Adapted from the 8th edition of Brain Facts by Marissa Fessenden.
About the Author
Marissa Fessenden is a freelance science journalist and illustrator. They gravitate toward stories about genes, wildlife and places large and small, as well as times when art gets science-y or science gets artsy.
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