Here a short introduction to the neuroscience of decision making in the brain: an article I recently wrote for the Swiss business magazine "Swiss Business".

So the starting point is the discovery that dopamine D2 receptors are decreased in cocaine addicts. Dopamine is the brain's "happy" drug, so to speak, but is also required for motivation and for attention. The chemical pathway of dopamine includes the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which is responsible for many of our attention and planning functions, including also short-term memory. The PFC we can think

Many years ago now I sat down one Sunday and read a short article in a magazine. After reading the article I gently put down the magazine and thought, “My God, this is happening everywhere. All the time. This explains it all!”“Explaining it all” may be an exaggeration but what I suddenly realised is that the effect I had just read about which seemed like a simple humorous experiment

To quote the Herald Sun in Australia:“Melbourne’s Julian Salvulescu, now Oxford's practical ethics professor, has said it is our "moral obligation" to use IVF to choose the smartest embryos, even if that maintains or increases social inequality.”So good idea or bad idea - and what does brain science tell us? Well I’ll cut to the point I think it is fuzzy thinking.1. There’s an assumption

With a lot in the news at the moment on cognitive enhancers it would be suitable to look at what boosts your brain performance.First a quick look at cognitive enhancers which is quickly becoming a key phrase. The key driver behind this is. of course, good old human nature. Why on earth develop your brain if you can swallow a few pills and get the same effect? Why not indeed? Well let’s look very

Artificial Intelligence Following on from my visit to the artificial intelligence laboratory of the University of Zurich I thought I’d highlight some of the topics they’re dealing with: The first question to answer is that of intelligence. And when you try to analyse that you will start to see a host of problems – how do you actually define intelligence? We all seem to know what it

With a view to the Neuro Leadership Group visit to the Artificial intelligence laboratory at Zurich University this is a (very) short look at embodied intelligence. Rolf Pfeifer, who leads the AI lab, has a book on the market called "How the Body Shapes the Way we Think: A new View of Intelligence." This is fascinating insight into intelligence itself and how the body influences this. This also highlights

NeuroLeadership – An IntroductionStill don’t know what NeuroLeadership is (don’t worry I’m not sure anybody does!!)So let’s start with a good old Wikipedia extract:“Neuroleadership refers to the application of findings from neuroscience to the field of leadership.The term neuroleadership was first coined by David Rock in the US publication Strategy+Business. Since

Fairness and cooperationFairness and cooperation are interesting concepts to look into particularly in brain science because these are human abilities that affect our whole society.Social scientists have been studying strategic decisions for decades now. In the 1950’s a classic strategy game was developed called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Two people play the role of criminals and are interrogated