Search Here

One of the smallest part of the brain called lateral habenula, plays an important role in decision making, scientists claim.

Lateral habenula was previously thought to be linked to depression and avoidance behaviors. Scientists at University of British Columbia (UBC) suggest that the functions of one of the smallest parts of the brain is not just limited to these activities.

“These findings clarify the brain processes involved in the important decisions that we make on a daily basis, from choosing between job offers to deciding which house or car to buy,” said Prof. Stan Floresco of UBC’s Dept. of Psychology and Brain Research Center (BRC) in a press release. “It also suggests that the scientific community has misunderstood the true functioning of this mysterious, but important, region of the brain.”

In order to conduct the research, the scientists trained lab rats. The rats were taught to make a decision between a consistent small reward (one food pellet) and a potentially larger reward (four food pellets). Both of these appeared sporadically.

Interestingly, rats chose the larger rewards when they had to wait before receiving food. They preferred to choose smaller rewards when higher risks were involved.

In the previous studies it was noted that turning off the lateral habenula caused rats to choose larger and riskier rewards more frequently. But this time they juggled between the both rewards.

“Deep brain stimulation – which is thought to inactivate the lateral habenula – has been reported to improve depressive symptoms in humans,” Floresco added. “But our findings suggest these improvements may not be because patients feel happier. They may simply no longer care as much about what is making them feel depressed.”

The research is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.