Decision Making Hampered by Interruption in the Flow of Information in Brain

Is it difficult for you to take decisions? If yes, it could be due to interruption in the flow of communication between two areas of your brain which represent our preferences or are involved in action planning, revealed a new study. Christian Ruff, a neuroeconomist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said, "We discovered that preference-based decisions were less stable if the information flow between the two brain regions was disrupted."

The research team used transcranial alternating current stimulation, a non-invasive brain stimulation method that enables generation of coordinated oscillations in the activity of particular brain regions. The study participants did not realize that they were being stimulated. Using this technique, the team intensified or reduced the information flow between the prefrontal cortex located directly below the forehead and the parietal cortex just above both ears.

The study participants had to make preference-based or purely sensory decisions about food. The investigators found that when information flow between the two brain regions was disrupted, the participants found it more difficult to state their preferences. They did not find evidence of any gender-specific effects in the experiments.

The findings were published in Nature Communications.

Source-IANS