Paul W. Glimcher
The Neurobiology of Human and Animal Decision-Making
My post-doctoral training was with in oculomotor physiology. Working
with Prof. David Sparks researching the brainstem and mesencephalic
nuclei that control eye rotations, I uncovered evidence that structures
participating in the execution of saccadic eye movements might be
involved in planning those movements as well. Evidence of this type has
been accumulating throughout the neuraxis, but few signals have been
associated with any one of the covert processes postulated to intervene
between sensation and action. As a result, over the past decade my
laboratory has focused on the identification and characterization of signals
that intervene between the neural processes that engage in sensory
encoding and the neural processes that engage movement generations.
These are the signals which must, in principle, underlie decision-making.
My students and post-docs study these processes using a variety of tools
that are drawn from the fields of neuroscience, economics and psychology.
Our methodologies thus range from single neuron electrophysiology to
fMRI to game theory. In a similar way, the members of my laboratory
include scientists with primary training in neurobiology, economics, and
psychology.
One set of ongoing projects seek to understand how humans
and animals make choices in time, a process usually called
delay discounting. A second set of projects seeks to understand
the contribution of midbrain dopamine systems to the process
of valuing alternative courses of actions. A third set of ongoing
related projects seeks to understand the role of the basal
ganglia in choice. A fourth set of projects seeks to understand
the structure of cortical areas involved in action selection both
in the face of risk and in the face of ambiguity.
The long-term goal of my research is to describe the neural
events that underlie behavioral decision-making employing an
interdisciplinary approach that is coming to be called
"neuroeconomics". Our approach to this problem consolidates
mathematical economic approaches to decision-making with
traditional neurobiological tools. By using these tools in our
physiological analyses we hope to develop a coherent view of
how the brain makes decisions.
E-mail: glimcher@cns.nyu.edu
Representative Publications
Glimcher, P. W., and Sparks, D. L. (1992). Movement
selection in advance of action in the superior colliculus. Nature
355,542-545.
Platt, M. L. and Glimcher, P. W. (1998) Response fields of
intra-parietal neurons quantified with multiple saccadic targets.
Exp. Brain Res. 121: 65-75.
Glimcher, P.W. (2001) Making Choices: The Neurophysiology
of Visual-Saccadic Decision Making. Trends in Neurocience.
24:654-659.
Glimcher, P.W. (2002) Decisions, Decisions, Decisions:
Choosing a Neurobiological Theory of Choice. Neuron.
36:323-332.
Glimcher, P.W. (2003) The Neurobiology of Visual Saccadic
Decision Making. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 26:133-
179.
Glimcher, P.W. (2003) Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain.
Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.
Glimcher, P. W. and Rustichini, A. (2004) Neuroeconomics:
The Concilience of Brain and Decision. Science. 306: 447-452.
Dorris, MC and Glimcher, PW. (2004) Activity in Posterior
Parietal Cortex is Correlated with the Subjective Desireability
of an Action. Neuron. 44: 365-378.
Glimcher, P. W. (2005) Indeterminacy in Brain and Behavior.
Annual Review of Psychology. 56: 25-56.
Bayer, H.M. and Glimcher P.W. (2005) Midbrain Dopamine
Neurons Encode a Quantitative Reward Prediction Error
Signal. Neuron. 47:129-141.
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