Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

The notion that the brain and central nervous system are made of circuits that process stimuli and evoke bodily responses is a founding principle of neuroscience. And we humans believe that once we understand every neural pathway, we will be able to predict a motor response to every sensory input—from feeling the tug of a fish on a hook to catching your spouse in bed with someone else. All we have to do is build the right deterministic model of the brain. In Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics, Paul W. Glimcher, an associate professor of neural science and psychology at New York University, recounts how the history of neuroscience has brought humankind to this reflex-based model—and then explains why it is insufficient. Simple behaviors might arise from stimulus-response rules, he allows, but complex behaviors are far less predictable. For example, the brain can weigh value and risk, even with incomplete or uncertain information. But how? Fortunately, Glimcher points out, there is already a science to answer that question: economics, particularly game theory. Other scientists have tapped economic theory to explain the natural world. In the 1960s certain ecologists used the discipline to model how animals forage for food and choose a mate. Glimcher makes a case that "neuroeconomics" can complete our understanding of our brains. He cites his own experiments on humans and monkeys to show how economic principles can accurately represent intricate thought processes, in situations rife with competing values and interests. As the book proceeds, the going can get tough, but the historical insight is worth the trip. Readers may feel a bit unsatisfied when Glimcher notes that a unified theory of neuroeconomics has yet to be written and then admits that he doesn’t know what this theory would look like. Yet he rises to the occasion by suggesting how scientists could begin to apply neuroeconomics to define the optimal course of action that a person might select and by providing a mathematical route for deriving that solution. In this way, Glimcher says, scientists can devise a better understanding of how the brain makes complex decisions in an uncertain world.

Dennis Watkins --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain is a worthwhile book."
— William H. Redmond, Journal of Economic Issues

"Glimcher does extraordinary neuroscience and relates it to the most fundamental of all questions: how the brain makes decisions. His use of game theory to characterize decision making in both humans and monkeys under conditions of strategic conflict is unique. What could be more important than studying the neurobiological basis of volitional choice in earnest? The implications and applications of his work are singular."
—Michael S. Gazzaniga, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College

"Glimcher has achieved an extraordinary synthesis of perspectives that have remained isolated for far too long. He views the brain as a system designed to maximize neither pleasure nor social or economic success, but biological fitness instead. He goes on to show why this matters in fields as disparate as psychology, economics, and his own field of neurobiology. This is an impressive and highly readable journey through vast areas of scientific and philosophical knowledge."
—Alex Kacelnik, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, Oxford University

"Glimcher's seminal book is a must-read in the emerging field of neuroeconomics. His analysis of the biological foundations of economic behavior makes for exciting reading for economists and neuroscientists alike, who will be fascinated by his insightful research connecting neuronal firing and economic decision making."
—Kevin A. McCabe, Professor of Economics and Law, and Director of the Neuroeconomics Laboratory at the Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University

"The book is an absorbing introduction to the emerging field of neuroeconomics."
— Kenneth Silber, Tech Central Station

"The book presents an extraordinary, thought-provoking, challenging, and immensely charming account of present and future neuroscience."
— Wolfram Schultz, Science

"This book will surely ignite discussion and soul searching among serious neuroscientists..."
— P. Read Montague, Nature

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 395 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262072440
• ISBN-13: 978-0262072441
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #784,914 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good first effort towards integrating neuro and econ, September 3, 2003

By	Richard L. Peterson "author: Inside the Inves... (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One of this book's greatest gifts is to clearly explain how our thinking about our thinking (neuroscience) has evolved over the past 2000 years. This book makes a significant contribution to the readers' historical understanding of psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and game theory.

One weakness of the book's approach is the lack of references to affect (emotion), which is suggested to have an impact on human utility and probability estimations in (Loewenstein, Loewenstein, Weber, & Welch, 2000), (Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor, 2002), and (Knutson and Peterson, 2003). In fact, Glimcher states: "Neuroeconomics provides a model of the architecture that links brain and behavior. Mind, though it may very much exist, simply does not figure in that equation (p343)."

The author's conclusions are limited to a logical, computational frame of reference - a form of computational behaviorism. This style certainly has applications within limited experimental games, but it is doubtful that it will provide significant insight into the workings of complex dynamic systems, such as the financial markets, without incorporating symbolic psychological concepts (such as affect).

This book is an excellent introduction to the field of neuroeconomics. Glimcher's exposition of the evolution of neuroscientific thought is fascinating and worth savoring. Glimcher's discussion of game theory is fascinating, but applications to real-world environments are not directly posited.

The latter half of the book, while intellectually interesting, reads much like an expanded academic journal article. Glimcher explains his lab's experimental trials and tribulations in much of the second half...

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neuro and economics, not neuroeconomics, July 20, 2003

By	Mathew Holden (Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Deisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain feels undigested, as if the author crammed in the library for a month and wrote a book on his notes.

Part I covers the neuro-, Part II covers the -economics, but instead of Part III, covering neuroeconomics, there's a 17-page-short chapter called "Putting It All Together."

For most of the book, things don't merge. For example, chapter 5 describes important experiments by Newsome and Shadlen that are not really neuroeconomics. Four seemingly tacked-on paragraphs at the end of the chapter argue that neuroeconomics has something to say about the experiments. But it's not clear what that is, and it's not clear why Glimcher didn't choose a more obviously relevant example.

A more general problem is that Glimcher argues throughout that current approaches to neuroscience are all reflex-based, and we need a major paradigm shift to make any more progress in brain research. But the examples he gives that employ his new paradigm seem to be well within the realm of normal cognitive neurophysiology. For example, the Ciaramitaro et al. attention experiments described in chapter 13 are elegant, but don't come across as paradigm shifting, in either the chapter, or the original Vision Research paper. Neuroeconomics comes to seem like just another tool in the toolbox, instead of a big new theory.

It may be that there is no Part III because the science has not yet happened. In which case, not writing more about it was a good thing to do. Parsimony is a virtue, but if there is not enough of a story to tell, I would have liked to see the author present his ideas about the major problems for the field, a Hilbert's 23 for neuroscience in the 21st century. Instead chapter 13 gives us four toy problems in primate physiology.

The best parts of the book are the history. Some of the stories are familiar, but most are not, and all are told engagingly. Although they don't really come together into a cohesive whole, they are interesting on their own, and a reader with a detailed knowledge of the field can connect most of the dots.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind-altering book about the mind, December 4, 2005

By	Skirmantas Janusonis (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

This is undoubtedly one of the most important conceptual books on the brain I have read in the past decade. Irrespective of how one feels about the author's ideas, familiarity with them is already a prerequisite for any serious philosophical debate about the structure of the mind and free will. This small book with a somewhat awkward title could have been easily called "New Ideas on the Brain and the Mind". It is not another popular book on the brain. It introduces a radically new approach to the brain, but does it so smoothly that stylistically the book reads like Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species". After you close the last page and look up, you know something has changed.

As with all great insights, the idea the author proposes is deceptively simple. Here is how I'd state it (my apologies for possible distortions):

The anatomy and physiology of the brain have been designed by evolution to look for optimal solutions. The brain appears sloppy, but it is a remarkably precise machine specifically designed to deal with an environment whose true state can never be known precisely. Some optimal solutions will be deterministic, but many optimal solutions will require a truly random behavior. That's it.

This can be shown mathematically (in probability theory and game theory), by observing actual animal behavior (in behavioral ecology), and by studying the brain (in experiments done by Dr. Glimcher and others). Now the mind-body dualism can survive only if it no longer hinges on nondeterministic vs. deterministic behavior. My decision to work or shirk has no longer anything to do with free will - I'm unconsciously randomizing my actions based on the optimal probabilistic strategy that a mathematician can compute. The soul and free will may well continue to exist (I recommend W. James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" as a relevant reading), but they certainly have to explain themselves better. Simple unpredictability will no longer do.

The book has a remarkable, perhaps even unique, review of how our ideas about the brain have come to be what they are and how they have been influenced by the development of mathematics. These chapters can be used in many courses virtually independently of the rest of the book.

1. I suspect that the author's explanation of Bayes's theorem (p. 194-197) will be obscure to people who are not already familiar with it. I'd write it in the symmetric form, P(A|B)P(B) = P(B|A)P(A), and would use a simple, more natural example.
2. The book should have mentioned "Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code" (ed. F. Rieke and others), another very important book, after which sensory perception can no longer be viewed the same. While Dr. Glimcher's approach is based on Bayes's theorem and game theory, "Spikes" approaches perception by using Bayes's theorem and information theory. It will be every interesting to watch probability theory, game theory, and information theory mutate and merge into one mathematical theory of the brain (which so far does not exist; see my review of "The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks").
3. I was left wondering how stochastic differential equations (SDEs), widely used in economics, might be used to understand the brain. It is a little odd that the author has not even mentioned them, especially because they may help us model how a Nash equilibrium is reached by the brain. Without understanding the dynamics of this process and its implementation in the brain, this new approach will fail (as the author is acutely aware).
4. Frankly, I don't find the described experiments to be particularly convincing, but these experiments are very, very difficult to do, and very few people are doing them.
5. The author could have mentioned an interesting biography of Rene Descartes by R.A. Watson ("Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of Rene Descartes"). This biography is a bit strange, but still useful.

All in all, Paul Glimcher has written a superb book. This truly new conceptual approach will change our views on why we sometimes sit down and feel compelled to write such long reviews.