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Decision Making

Decision Making

Decision-making is a fundamental cognitive process that involves evaluating alternatives and selecting among them. This process can range from simple choices, such as deciding what to wear, to complex decisions, like choosing a major in college or a career path. The complexity of the decision often dictates the approach we use, which can be broadly categorized into two types: automatic and controlled decision-making.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 2, 2026

A Method for Investigating Age-related Differences in the Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Control Networks Associated with Dimensional Change Card Sort Performance

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Published on: May 7, 2014

Age-related changes in behavioural and neural variability in a decision-making task.

Fenying Zang¹, Anup Khanal^2,3, Sonja Förster⁴

¹Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. f.zang@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.

Nature Communications

|June 30, 2026

Summary

Older mice exhibit increased neural variability and slower response times, impacting cognitive functions like decision-making. This study reveals age-related changes in brain activity across multiple regions.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Aging Research
Cognitive Decline

Background:

Age-related cognitive decline, particularly in learning and decision-making, is often linked to heightened neural response variability.
Understanding the neural underpinnings of these cognitive changes is crucial for developing interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the effects of aging on behavioral and neural variability using large-scale recordings in mice.
To identify specific brain regions affected by age-related changes in neural activity and variability.

Main Methods:

Recorded neural activity from over 18,000 neurons across 16 brain regions in younger and older mice.
Mice performed a visual decision-making task to assess behavioral variability.
Analyzed firing rates, neural variability (Fano factor), and variability quenching.

Main Results:

Older mice displayed increased response time variability and globally elevated firing rates and neural variability.
A decrease in variability quenching (reduced neural variability upon stimulus presentation) was observed in older animals.
Specific regions like visual/motor cortex, striatum, and hippocampus showed higher firing rates, while thalamus showed lower rates. Variability quenching was attenuated in cortex, striatum, and thalamus.

Conclusions:

Aging globally increases neural firing rates and variability while impairing stimulus-induced variability quenching.
Age-related neural changes exhibit regional specificity, with distinct patterns in different brain areas.
Large-scale neural recordings provide insights into the neural basis of age-related cognitive decline.