Understanding decision neuroscience: a multidisciplinary perspective and neural substrates

The neuroscience of decision making is a rapidly evolving multidisciplinary research area that employs neuroscientific techniques to explain various parameters associated with decision making behavior. In this chapter, we emphasize the role of multiple disciplines such as psychology, economics, neuroscience, and computational approaches in understanding the phenomenon of decision making. Further, we present a theoretical approach that suggests understanding the building blocks of decision making as bottom-up processes and integrate these with top-down modulatory factors. Relevant neurophysiological and neuroimaging findings that have used the building-block approach are reviewed. A unifying framework emphasizing multidisciplinary views would bring further insights into the active research area of decision making. Pointing to future directions for research, we focus on the role of computational approaches in such a unifying framework.