Keeping Your Brain Healthy: Brain-FX

Decision-Making: (Part 2)Dog Brain or Human in Control?

Experiments have shown healthy adults to take a bet even when they are sure to lose, when they can also make their opponent lose. The desire to punish the opponent overrides the desire to win a little bit of money. Clearly, we are not always logical.

We have dog brains with a human cortex on top. Although our cortexes represent all that is human, logical, rational, and civilized, our animal tendencies are not quiet. They sometimes win the argument over our civilized brain, and make decisions contrary to rationality.

(Here's a thought: maybe this is what happens when politicians decide to go to war?)

Emotion and Reason

Is this a good thing or not? There’s something critical to decision-making in both parts of the brain, the emotional and the rational. Effective decisions come from evaluating input from both parts.

You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to see how an emotional decision can badly distort judgment. We’ve all been there. Parents see this everyday in their children. But as adults, we are also prone to impulse and instant gratification. Anyone who’s ever been shopping or gambling knows the experience.

Risk and Reward

Much of the traffic between the primitive and modern parts of our brains is devoted to the conscious calculation of risks and rewards. As humans, we are unique because we can look out to the future and visualize the consequences of a decision or action. This sets us apart from dogs and other mammals.

We can contemplate what might flow from a decision to chase an immediate gratification. We get a thrill or immediate pleasure just from the prospect of future gratification.

Your Brain & Decisions: Part 1

You make decisions logically, don't you? Of course you do! And yet...what about those bets you made? What about when you go shopping? Are you making buying decisions based on rationality?...Or your emotions?

Neuroscientists are now discovering more about the brain and how it processes information and makes decisions. While much remains to be learned, apparently we may not be as rational and in control of our senses as we think we are.

The closer scientists look, the clearer it becomes that we are much like our animal ancestors. To understand the brain better, think of it in terms of three layers:

1. reptilian or primitive
2. dog
3. human

Three Brains in One

The reptilian brain consists of the top of the spinal cord and the base of the brain. It consists of those parts we share in common with reptiles and fish. It is responsible for many of our automatic systems for survival, such as breathing and hunger.

Wrapped around these structures is the ancient limbic system which is very similar to the brains of dogs and other mammals. It is the seat of basic emotions such as fear, aggressiveness and contentment.

And encasing these older structures is the modern cortex, the folded gray matter sets us apart from other mammals. Although many animals such as dogs and chimps have cortexes, the human cortex has grown to a huge size. It manages all sorts of things, like hearing and seeing, reasoning, abstract thinking, and our personalities.

We call the prefrontal cortex the ‘executive’ part of the brain because it considers all the input from the brain and makes decisions for goal planning and completion. Or, at least it makes decisions when we let it – when we don’t let our dog brain take over.

Stay tuned for part two on your brain and how it makes decisions:

Who's In Charge - Emotions or Reason?