Probability and the Single Neuron: Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics, by P.-W. Glimcher. 2003. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 375 pp., $40.00.

Extract

In an uncertain world, people and other animals make their living by predicting which of alternative courses of action is likely to yield the best return. For humans the return might take many forms, such as material, financial, social, or esthetic, but the underlying currency involved for any species is “inclusive fitness,” the rate at which an animal's genes are propagated. Professor Glimcher demonstrates that Economics methods are applicable to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, both at the behavioral and the neuronal level. This approach has been called neuro-economics, although “econometrics” characterizes it more precisely. Econometrics is the application of statistical and mathematical methods in the field of economics to test and quantify economic theories and the solution to economic problems. Specifically, individuals' decision-making benefits from knowing how likely a response is to be reinforced, and knowing the reinforcement's value. Even single neurons are sensitive to these variables. Glimcher reaches beyond the heavily studied neural substrate for sensation and response to predictive neural circuitry that factors in the prior probability of reward, and its expected value. Indeed, he and his colleagues have identified neurons in monkey's inferior parietal lobule whose firing rates reflect both probability and value.