Adding It All Together....

Researchers in decision neuroscience recently took part in a discussion about their work and how this cutting-edge field came to be. They believe this branch of neuroscience may significantly advance our understanding of the brain as well as give more insight into a variety of mental disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia. For many psychiatric disorders, patients that are symptomatic are frequently making poor decisions about numerous things throughout the day, such as how they handle their anxiety and other emotional decisions. 

The new knowledge about the cellular and circuit mechanisms of working memory and decision processes in the brain has already had a significant impact on clinical studies of mental illness, for instance, addiction,  fundamentally a problem of making bad choices, resulting from impaired reward signaling and decision-making circuits in the brain. Understanding these circuits has become key to linking genes and molecules with behavior in clinical studies.

 

DONT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE TAKEN THE SURVEY

I MEAN IT TAKE THE SURVEY IN PREVIOUS POST FIRST...

I'm going to study brain circuits more thoroughly by analyzing the results from the survey from my last post. In case you were wondering what your results said about you: if you agreed to one or two questions you show high levels of compassion. If you agreed to three or four questions you are on the borderline of showing psychopathic tendencies. Now if you said agree five or more times you are more inclined to harbor psychopathic tendencies. 

Now don't worry if you agreed with all six statements, it doesn't mean you are secretly a dangerous maniac. Everyone displays some of these tendencies, only a select few can be called true psychopaths.

It would be great if you would take my survey.  J  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2TBYK62

Look at this picture and tell me what you see:

     

    When you first looked at this picture what did you see? 

    Maybe you saw the demons.

    But did you happen to notice the angels?

    Still failing to see them?

Some studies show that if you saw the demons first, you are more likely to choose the wrong decisions, even if you know it is the wrong one or not. And if you saw the angels first you  are more likely to choose the right decision.

Although there is no scientific fact to proof this right, it is similar to how we decide right from wrong. Just like in life we come across decisions that are very unclear. And when our brain needs to make a decision it picks the easiest option. Just like in this illusion, your brain didn't know what it was looking it so it decided to come up with the less complicated answer and see the big bold black demons. So your answer was that you saw demons. You didn't consider taking another look because your brain figured it out whether you knew it or not. This is why people take the easiest way out of decisions: because their brain likes simple answers to simple questions. 

How do we really know right from wrong?

     Are humans born with a good sense of good morals or are we brought up that way? The human brain is a complicated jumble of different cells and molecules that are difficult to understand. For years scientists have been trying to understand how someone knows right from wrong. Do humans make decisions based on their morals determined by their brains? Or are they influenced by what they feel in their heart? I am going to answer these questions and discover how the brain decides and influences you to decide what is right from wrong.

     

     I will begin my research in which part of the brain is this controlled. From there I will research different mental diseases and how this part of the brain is affected. If there is a connection between the two then I can determine why and how the brain controls our morals. Or if the brain is simply a storage device and it is our souls and what we feel inside, which cannot be easily determined.  From there I can ask is there really an angel or devil on your shoulder persuading you to pick the better decision.  Though I’m not a science genius and cannot come up with a fully complete answer, I can get close to the right answer with the knowledge and resources I have.

    

     I decided to do my genius hour project on this topic because I have always been fascinated how the human brain functions and how we make decisions. The research on how the human brain decides can help scientists discover how mental illnesses are formed and how they make a person decide differently than others. I cannot wait to begin my research in how the brain decides right from wrong.