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Volume 11 Issue 4, April 2008

The ability to make appropriate choices is critical for survival. Successful decision making requires the integration of sensory information, motivational states and potential outcomes to select the best action. Recently, there has been great progress in our understanding of the neural mechanisms supporting decision making, from basic perceptual decisions to social interactions. In this issue, we present a collection of reviews on the neurobiology of decision making. Cover credit: Sandra Baker / Alamy. (pp 387-416)

Volume 11 Issue 4

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Editorial

  • Nature Neuroscience is joining a consortium of journals that enables reviews to be transferred from one journal to another, while allowing authors, referees and editors to control their degree of participation in the system flexibly.

    Editorial

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Book Review

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News & Views

  • A new study shows that a subset of the glia that express the proteoglycan NG2 can fire action potentials, contradicting the dogma that only neurons are excitable in the brain. These glia receive excitatory and inhibitory synaptic input, are selectively vulnerable to ischemia and are present into adulthood, though their function remains mysterious.

    • Thomas S Otis
    • Michael V Sofroniew
    News & Views

  • Language is unique to humans, but did it evolve gradually or suddenly, from a chance mutation or as a consequence of a larger brain? Two studies now suggest that language may have arisen gradually from precursors in other primates.

    • Asif A Ghazanfar
    News & Views

  • Previous 'mind-reading' studies have differentiated patterns of brain activity without understanding the underlying processes. A new study in Nature uses a model of neural encoding mechanisms to identify brain activity patterns.

    • Brian A Wandell
    News & Views
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Introduction

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Review Article

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Brief Communication

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Article

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Focus

  • The ability to make appropriate choices is critical for survival. Successful decision making requires the integration of sensory information, motivational states and potential outcomes to select the best action. Recently, there has been great progress in our understanding of the neural mechanisms supporting decision making in a wide range of contexts, including risky choices and social interactions. This special focus on decision making contains four reviews that highlight recent achievements in this important field.

    Focus
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