Shanghai Colloquium in Neuroeconomics: Michael Platt

Abstract:

Intelligent decision-making requires a balance between exploiting known resources and exploring for potentially better opportunities. Foraging theory provides a formal mathematical description of this process in terms of only a few key variables, namely the rate of return from a known resource and the richness of the environment. Animals as diverse as insects, fish, birds, primates, and humans make foraging decisions that accord with the predictions of this model, suggesting a shared computational process. In primates and humans, we hypothesize that foraging decisions are regulated by a circuit connecting the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the locus coeruleus (LC), and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). We previously showed that ACC mediates momentary decisions during foraging, with activity rising to a threshold before decisions to leave a patch. The LC, a brainstem noradrenergic center, responds to surprising events and regulates the balance of focus and distractibility, thus offering a potential mechanism for regulating foraging decisions. PCC, a canonical node in the default mode network (DMN), is implicated in attention, learning, and decision-making, shows high noradrenergic receptor expression, and is reciprocally connected with the ACC. We theorize that PCC modulation of ACC thresholds during foraging is partly driven by activity of LC efferents terminating in PCC, reflecting the influence of internal state on foraging decisions. Recent findings from our lab support the hypothesis that PCC integrates information about the environment and the animal’s internal state to set foraging policy, and that ACC regulates focus via pupil-linked variation in LC activity. This model predicts that decision-making disorders may reflect dysfunction in this network, a prediction we recently confirmed in addiction and problem gambling. A wide variety of cognitive tasks can be construed as the allocation of time to searching for distributed resources, including visual search, free recall, completion of sub-goals, voluntary task-switching, study-time allocation, and problem solving. Hence, foraging may be a core cognitive capacity applicable across behavioral domains, with important implications both for human health and business applications.

Biography:

Michael Platt studies how we make decisions, using a combination of neural recordings, pharmacology, brain imaging, genetics, and computation, in humans, monkeys, and other animals. He received his B.A from Yale and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and did a post-doctoral fellowship at New York University. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Klingenstein Foundation, the McDonnell Foundation, the EJLB Foundation, Autism Speaks, the Broad Foundation, the Klarman Foundation, and the Department of Defense, among others. He is a winner of the Ruth and A. Morris Williams Faculty Research Prize in the Duke University School of Medicine, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow. He has given the Sage Lecture at UC Santa Barbara and has received the Astor Visiting Professor award at Oxford University. Michael has authored over 75 peer-reviewed papers and over 35 review and opinion papers. Michael is an editor of major textbooks in neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience, and he is a former president of the Society for Neuroeconomics. Michael’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and National Geographic, as well as on ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR, CBC, BBC, and MTV. Michael values teaching, and was a recipient of the Master Clinician/Teacher Award from the Duke University School of Medicine. He has also served as a consultant on several films, including The Fountain (Warner Bros, Darren Aronofsky, director) and as a scientific advisor to NOVA.

About Shanghai Colloquium in Neuroeconomics

This colloquium is one of the monthly Shanghai Colloquium Series. It aims to promote interdisciplinary discussion among many scholars in Shanghai who study Decision Making. The cooperative brings together scholars from all of the Shanghai Universities and Institutes on a regular basis, and holds monthly colloquium in Neuroeconomics at NYU Shanghai's campus in Pudong. The monthly colloquium also brings internationally recognized speakers from Asia, Europe and the Americas to Shanghai. Each colloquium is followed by a Q&A session as well as an informal reception.