Descartes is still in error, it seems

To bet or not to bet: How the brain learns to estimate risk

Researchers from EPFL and Caltech have made an important
neurobiological
discovery of how humans learn to predict risk. The research, appearing
in the
March 12 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, will shed light on why
certain
kinds of risk, notably financial risk, are often underestimated, and
whether
abnormal behavior such as addiction (e.g. to gambling or drugs) could
be caused
by an erroneous evaluation of risk.

Planning entails making predictions. In an uncertain environment,
however, our
predictions often don't pan out. And erroneous prediction of risk
often leads to
unusual behaviour: euphoria or excessive gambling when risk is
underestimated,
and panic attacks or depression when we predict that things are
riskier than
they really are. To understand these anomalous reactions to uncertain
situations, we need to look to the neurobiological mechanisms that
underlie how
we learn to predict risk. Surprisingly little research has been done
in this
topic, and we do not yet know precisely how the brain is involved in
our
estimation of risk.

Using functional imaging in a simple gambling task in which risk was
constantly
changed, the researchers discovered that an early activation of the
anterior
insula of the brain was associated with mistakes in predicting risk.
The time
course of the activation also indicated a role in rapid updating,
suggesting
that this area is involved in how we learn to modify our risk
predictions. The
finding was particularly interesting, notes lead author and EPFL
professor Peter
Bossaerts, because the anterior insula is the locus of where we
integrate and
process emotions.

"This represents an important advance in our understanding of the
neurological
underpinnings of risk, in analogy with an earlier discovery of a
signal for
forecast error in the dopaminergic system," says Bossaerts, "and
indicates that
we need to update our understanding of the neural basis of reward
anticipation
in uncertain conditions to include risk assessment."

Contrary to what Descartes held dear, the finding that risk prediction
and
processing of emotions are related suggests that emotions may be
intimately
involved in rational decision making -- they may help us to correctly
assess
risk in an uncertain world.

Source: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
http://www.physorg.com/news124537641.html

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