NCS-FO: Understanding the computations the brain performs during choice

NCS-FO：了解大脑在选择过程中执行的计算

• 批准号: 2319580
• 负责人: Karen Moxon
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2319580&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NCS; FO; Understanding; computations; brain

This proposal seeks to understand how the brain supports and encodes decision making by taking an interdisciplinary approach. The researchers plan to use neural activity recorded while participants make complex decisions. This brain activity can then be captured in a model that makes particular predictions about how each brain area contributes to decision-making. In turn, the researchers hope to use that model to test specific hypothesis about how decision-making is affected by neurostimulation to those areas. Knowledge of how the brain supports decision making can provide invaluable insight for the development of educational curricula. Information is best presented to students in a way that works in concert with the brain. Further, insights from this project may provide insight into the development of artificial intelligence. This potential application has profound ethical implications that the researchers aim to study in this proposal. Finally, this work focuses on assessing the value underlying decision making which is fundamental to economics. Specifically, valuation maintains and/or updates our understanding of gains or losses based on experience. Overly risky or risk-averse behavior can lead to suboptimal decisions and have been linked to neuropsychological disorders. The proposed research is split into three simultaneous objectives. In the first, the researchers propose to identify which features of the data (e.g., amplitude of the neural activity) provide information about the decision-making process. In the second, the researchers aim to build decoders that explicitly combine those features to predict which decision the person will make. In the final objective the researchers aim to develop a control algorithm which predicts the person’s decision and then intervenes by applying neurostimulation to alter that decision. This closed loop stimulation may prove important for developing interventions that could, for example, help reduce risk seeking in compulsive gamblers. Alternatively, in some people that are too risk averse (never leave the house), at different type of stimulation could reduce this aversion to risk.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该提案旨在通过采取跨学科方法来了解大脑如何支持和编码决策，研究人员计划使用参与者做出复杂决策时记录的神经活动，然后可以在模型中捕获这些活动，该模型对每个活动如何做出特定的预测。反过来，研究人员希望利用该模型来测试有关这些区域的神经刺激如何影响决策的具体假设，了解大脑如何支持决策可以为发展提供宝贵的见解。教育课程的信息得到了最好的呈现。此外，该项目的见解可以提供对人工智能发展的深入了解，研究人员希望在这项工作中研究这一点。具体来说，估值会根据经验维持和/或更新我们对收益或损失的理解，这可能会导致次优决策，并且与神经心理学有关。拟议的研究是分裂的。在第一个目标中，研究人员建议确定数据的哪些特征（例如神经活动的幅度）提供有关决策过程的信息；在第二个目标中，研究人员的目标是构建明确组合的解码器。在最终目标中，研究人员的目标是开发一种控制算法，该算法可以预测人的决定，然后通过应用神经刺激来改变该决定，这种闭环刺激可能对于制定干预措施很重要。例如，可以帮助减少或者，对于一些过于厌恶风险（从不离开家）的人来说，不同类型的刺激可以减少这种对风险的厌恶。该奖项是 NSF 的法定使命，并且通过使用评估被认为值得支持。基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。