Decision making and its pathologies: a translational animal-to-human overview

Cognitive functioning, or rather executive functioning, is vital to adequate performance and decision-making. The advantageous, reward-related decision-making process accompanies activations in prefrontal and subcortical brain regions associated with executive functioning. In turn, poor reward-related decision-making is associated with various psychiatric conditions (schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD) connected with low prefrontal activity, leading to inaccurate representations of rewards and penalties and contributing to poor decision-making.

More recently, pathological decision-making raised interest among psychologists and neuroscientists. Humans don’t always make the smartest decisions when it comes to the things we buy. Time pressure can explain some of this – we might grab the first thing we see on the shelf without checking the price and head to the cashier. But research shows that even when we aren’t pressed for time, we don’t always make the right decisions when it comes to price points. Poor decisions are influenced by a combination of factors. But for many of us, our decisions are influenced by how we perceive convenience, which can be based on absolute thinking, or anchoring biases. However, all subsequent evaluations shall remain within the clinical scope of this proposal.

These pieces of information raise a simple yet important question: How do people with poor decision-making make decisions that are considered necessary for their day-by-day life? For example, how does an ADHD subject use reward-related decision-making to buy one item rather than another one?

This Research Topic aims to enhance our understanding of poor reward-related decision-making processes in psychiatric disorders. Moreover, the Research Topic seeks to explore potential strategies that may help poor reward-related decision-making of consumers clinically falling within the spectrum of autism or coping/accommodating daily with psychiatric symptoms. This aim involves the adoption of experimental behavioral setups, human and non-human, to explore the neurobiological aspects of pathological decision-making features such as impulsivity, risk-seeking, intolerance to delay, and intolerance of uncertainty, affecting decision-making abilities. The research will emphasize distinct neurobiological measures for understanding decision-making processes (the catecholaminergic, glutamatergic, and GABAergic neurotransmission actors), highlighting the primary brain areas involved (prefrontal cortices, limbic system, hippocampal formations, including thalamic nuclei).

We welcome submissions that navigate the uncharted and critical territory of non-neurotypical reward-related decision-making in human and non-human models. Authors are encouraged to explore the following areas within the context of pathological decision-making :

• The neurobiological markers of decision-making in human and non-human models: Exploring the role of specific neurotransmission actors in specific decision-making processes.

• The role of specific brain areas during decision-making: Exploring the “domain-general” and the “domain-specific” hypotheses of executive functioning.

• Integrating reward-related decision-making insights for non-neurotypical consumers: Exploring new transdisciplinary approaches.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Registered Report
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: decision-making, reward, psychiatric disorders, ASD, impulsivity, risk-seeking, intolerance to delay, reward-related decision-making

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.