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Commentary

Nature 456, 168-169 (13 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/456168a; Published online 12 November 2008

Open Innovation Challenges

The innovative brain

See associated Correspondence: Hauser, Nature 456, 700 (December 2008)

Andrew Lawrence1, Luke Clark1, Jamie Nicole Labuzetta1, Barbara Sahakian1 & Shai Vyakarnum2

  1. Andrew Lawrence, Luke Clark, Jamie Nicole, Labuzetta and Barbara Sahakian are at the MRC-Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, in the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
    Email: lc260@cam.ac.uk.
  2. Shai Vyakarnum is at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QA, UK.

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'Hot' decision-making, involving the evaluation of reward and punishment, is essential to the entrepreneurial process and may be possible to teach, argue Barbara Sahakian and her coauthors.

The creativity and innovation shown by entrepreneurs is a crucial source of employment and economic growth. Although there is potential for considerable profit in making the decision to 'go it alone', rather than working for an existing company, these individuals accept considerable risk.