A key part of the brain involved with decision making, the striatum, appears to operate hierarchically – much like a traditional corporation with executives, middle managers and employees, according to researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University in Japan.
The striatum is part of the basal ganglia, the inner core of the brain that processes decisions and movements. Neuroscientists have thought the three regions of the striatum – ventral, dorsomedial and dorsolateral – have very distinct roles in motivation, adaptive decisions and routine actions, respectively.
However, OIST researchers found these parts do not operate in isolation, but work together in a coordinated hierarchy – like a traditional company with executives making decisions, delegating to middle managers and employees carrying out specific tasks.
“The three parts have not been investigated simultaneously in the same task before,” said Dr. Mokoto Ito, a researcher in OIST’s Neural Computation Unit and lead paper author. “We found the different parts work for the same behaviors, but in different roles.”