“I don’t know whether or not you are aware, but there are people who study why we make decisions.”
“Didn’t know, but how earth-shaking is that? Really, don’t we just make decisions on either the basis of necessity or the basis of desire?”
“Well, that’s not a bad summary. I really hadn’t reduced it to something that simple, but I guess you nailed it, except for what some guys recently discovered about the Pavlovian side of the process, hinting at both the why of decision-making and also the how.”
“You mean the guy with the dog?”
“Yeah. But first let me get past the word guys. ‘Gals,’ too. Okay, interesting distraction here. If I say either, do I offend any? Offend all? End of distraction; I really don’t care because I don’t mean anything other than a colloquial expression, like the musical Guys and Dolls. Another distraction here. Do you see what supersensitivity does to the flow of language? Why did I have to stop to explain before I got to my main points? In the olden days… Oh! well, these days aren’t those days, so now that I distracted you from what I was going to say, I have to repeat the topic.”
“Go on.”
“So, Ashleigh K. Morse, Beatrice K. Leung, Emily Heath, Jesus Bertran-Gonzalez, Elise Papin, Billy C. Cheng, Bernard W. Balleine, and Vincent Laurent, writing in Neuron ran some experiments to discover pathways in the brain that lead to our making decisions. Now, they begin by acknowledging something you already know, that memory plays a role in decision-making.
“Real fast; here’s an example. Some long-lasting companies have advertised enough that you have grown accustomed to their commercials and have become a customer. That instills a favorable attitude because you saw the stimulus and got the reward, both of which are now part of your memory system. That memory system will probably shape similar decisions. For example, I remember my dad saying that he was a “Ford man,” and recently I heard a former Congressman-turned-commentator say the same thing on TV. And, of course, there are people who are similarly attached to other car makes, “a Chevy man” also being common. And you keep going back to the same products when you walk down the aisles of grocery stores perusing the multicolored packages and cans. Seems that Morse et al. have discovered the pathway between memory and decision begins in the basolateral amygdala. Right? That’s the well-known center of the flight-freeze-flight reaction, the deep emotional brain.
“Ashleigh (I don’t know her personally, and she might be offended by my presumptive use of her first name—another distraction) and colleagues say from the basolateral amygdala, the pathway leads through the nucleus accumbens, kind of a transition zone in the brain or maybe a train station where the process connects to the motor action section. Now, from there, the pathway gets a bit too much for any discussion, so I’ll reduce it, and if you want, you can read a summary of their work at medicalxpress.com.* Anyway, as I was saying, they discovered the pathway to run from delta opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens through cholinergic interneurons. Those delta opioid receptors activate cellular responses, one of which is the infamous one that gets people addicted and the other of which is the prediction of a reward, kind of like getting that new Ford or Chevy. Those delta opioid receptors are part of a system or family called the G protein-coupled receptors that activate cellular responses. The authors shorten that to the ‘GPCR-based memory process.’
“Where are we goin’ with this? My flight response is kicking in.”
“The group explored how GPCR receptors encode psychological processes. So, we make decisions through specific pathways in the brain that are fundamentally Pavlovian, you know, the old stimulus-and-response stuff you read about in Psych 101. These “guys” tie that process to memory, what I call the “I’m a Ford/Chevy man” process that controls the decision-making on the new car lot. Been rewarded? Continue to seek the same reward through the next decision. I suppose the practical side of that is known by most of us and especially by people who want to build brand loyalty.
“But now, and this is the BIG NOW, all of us, and that’s the BIG ALL because it involves the WHOLE WORLD, are making memories through the GPCR receptors that will help to fashion our future decisions. Yeah! You are currently making memories as your brain deals with the Covid-19 pandemic. You can’t deny that you are responding in part from your amygdalae, can you?
And you are having to make decisions that aren’t just based on past stimuli and rewards. You are building that new pathway.
“I see.”
“Yes, so knowing there’s a process going on that involves your future in a very personal way, how are you going to handle the stimuli you are now receiving? There’s a very narrow path on which you are walking toward your future. Under intense stimuli that involve repeated rewards of one kind or another, you are establishing memories that will control or influence your decisions a year from now, ten years from now, or maybe throughout your life. All of us are now part of a big experiment on how the present shapes our personal futures.”
* https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-newly-memory-decision-making.html
“Didn’t know, but how earth-shaking is that? Really, don’t we just make decisions on either the basis of necessity or the basis of desire?”
“Well, that’s not a bad summary. I really hadn’t reduced it to something that simple, but I guess you nailed it, except for what some guys recently discovered about the Pavlovian side of the process, hinting at both the why of decision-making and also the how.”
“You mean the guy with the dog?”
“Yeah. But first let me get past the word guys. ‘Gals,’ too. Okay, interesting distraction here. If I say either, do I offend any? Offend all? End of distraction; I really don’t care because I don’t mean anything other than a colloquial expression, like the musical Guys and Dolls. Another distraction here. Do you see what supersensitivity does to the flow of language? Why did I have to stop to explain before I got to my main points? In the olden days… Oh! well, these days aren’t those days, so now that I distracted you from what I was going to say, I have to repeat the topic.”
“Go on.”
“So, Ashleigh K. Morse, Beatrice K. Leung, Emily Heath, Jesus Bertran-Gonzalez, Elise Papin, Billy C. Cheng, Bernard W. Balleine, and Vincent Laurent, writing in Neuron ran some experiments to discover pathways in the brain that lead to our making decisions. Now, they begin by acknowledging something you already know, that memory plays a role in decision-making.
“Real fast; here’s an example. Some long-lasting companies have advertised enough that you have grown accustomed to their commercials and have become a customer. That instills a favorable attitude because you saw the stimulus and got the reward, both of which are now part of your memory system. That memory system will probably shape similar decisions. For example, I remember my dad saying that he was a “Ford man,” and recently I heard a former Congressman-turned-commentator say the same thing on TV. And, of course, there are people who are similarly attached to other car makes, “a Chevy man” also being common. And you keep going back to the same products when you walk down the aisles of grocery stores perusing the multicolored packages and cans. Seems that Morse et al. have discovered the pathway between memory and decision begins in the basolateral amygdala. Right? That’s the well-known center of the flight-freeze-flight reaction, the deep emotional brain.
“Ashleigh (I don’t know her personally, and she might be offended by my presumptive use of her first name—another distraction) and colleagues say from the basolateral amygdala, the pathway leads through the nucleus accumbens, kind of a transition zone in the brain or maybe a train station where the process connects to the motor action section. Now, from there, the pathway gets a bit too much for any discussion, so I’ll reduce it, and if you want, you can read a summary of their work at medicalxpress.com.* Anyway, as I was saying, they discovered the pathway to run from delta opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens through cholinergic interneurons. Those delta opioid receptors activate cellular responses, one of which is the infamous one that gets people addicted and the other of which is the prediction of a reward, kind of like getting that new Ford or Chevy. Those delta opioid receptors are part of a system or family called the G protein-coupled receptors that activate cellular responses. The authors shorten that to the ‘GPCR-based memory process.’
“Where are we goin’ with this? My flight response is kicking in.”
“The group explored how GPCR receptors encode psychological processes. So, we make decisions through specific pathways in the brain that are fundamentally Pavlovian, you know, the old stimulus-and-response stuff you read about in Psych 101. These “guys” tie that process to memory, what I call the “I’m a Ford/Chevy man” process that controls the decision-making on the new car lot. Been rewarded? Continue to seek the same reward through the next decision. I suppose the practical side of that is known by most of us and especially by people who want to build brand loyalty.
“But now, and this is the BIG NOW, all of us, and that’s the BIG ALL because it involves the WHOLE WORLD, are making memories through the GPCR receptors that will help to fashion our future decisions. Yeah! You are currently making memories as your brain deals with the Covid-19 pandemic. You can’t deny that you are responding in part from your amygdalae, can you?
And you are having to make decisions that aren’t just based on past stimuli and rewards. You are building that new pathway.
“I see.”
“Yes, so knowing there’s a process going on that involves your future in a very personal way, how are you going to handle the stimuli you are now receiving? There’s a very narrow path on which you are walking toward your future. Under intense stimuli that involve repeated rewards of one kind or another, you are establishing memories that will control or influence your decisions a year from now, ten years from now, or maybe throughout your life. All of us are now part of a big experiment on how the present shapes our personal futures.”
* https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-newly-memory-decision-making.html
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