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Neuroscience has paid only little attention to decision-making for many years. Although no field of science has cohered around this topic, a variety of researchers in different areas of neuroscience ranging from cellular physiology to neuropsychology and computational neuroscience have been engaged in working on this issue. Thus, the time seemed to be ripe to bring these researchers together and discuss the state of the art of the neurobiology of decision-making in a broad forum. This book is a collection of contributions presented at that forum in Paris in October 1994 organized by the Fondation IPSEN. Until now decision-making has been studied in the fields of psychology, artificial intelligence, and economics - to name just a few - while neuroscientific research has paid only little attention to it. But now the importance of decision-making has become indisputable, especially in the context of reasoning processes that culminate in the personal and social decisions that define rationality. This book contains articles by leading researchers in experimental neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, neurochemistry, neurocomputation, experimental psychology, and philosophy, discussing the contributions made by these disciplines to the emerging field of neurobiology of decision-making.

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Human Neuroanatomy Relevant to Decision-Making.- Morphological Correlations of Human and Monkey Frontal Lobe.- Frontal Lobe and the Cognitive Foundation of Behavioral Action.- Neural Mechanisms Supporting Successful Social Decisions in Simians.- Neural Basis of Decision in Perception and in the Control of Movement.- How the Basal Ganglia Make Decisions.- The Will of the Brain: Cerebral Correlates of Willful Acts.- Neuronal Models of Cognitive Functions Associated with the Prefrontal Cortex.- The Biological Causes of Irrationality.- Neuropsychological Approaches to Reasoning and Decision-Making.- Feeling Reasons.- Epilogue: Models of Decision-Making.

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Antonio Damasio ist Professor für Neurowissenschaften, Neurologie und Psychologie an der University of Southern California und Direktor des dortigen Brain and Creativity Institute. Für seine Arbeit wurde er mit zahlreichen Preisen ausgezeichnet, zuletzt erhielt er den renommierten Honda-Preis und die Corine. Damasio ist Fellow der American Academy of Arts and Sciences sowie Mitglied der National Academy of Sciences.

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