When our ears shut down

Gregory Berns

Gregory Berns is studying how expert advice may shut down areas of the brain responsible for decision-making, particularly when people are trying to evaluate a decision involving risk.

There may be a biological reason for blindly following expert advice, according to Gregory Berns (neuroeconomics and psychiatry).

Berns used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that expert advice may shut down areas of the brain responsible for decision-making, particularly when people are trying to evaluate a decision involving risk.

Study participants were asked to make financial choices between a guaranteed payment and a lottery while undergoing fMRI scanning. During a portion of the test, they were asked to make decisions on their own. During another portion, they received advice from a financial expert on which choice to make.

"Results showed that brain regions consistent with decision-making were active in participants when making choices on their own; however there was an offloading of decision-making in the presence of expert advice, says Jan Engelmann, a psychiatry research fellow and first author of the study.

The study was published in the March 2009 issue of Public Library of Science.

"This study indicated that the brain relinquishes responsibility when a trusted authority provides expertise," says Berns. "The problem with this tendency is that it can work to a person’s detriment if the trusted source turns out to be incompetent or corrupt."



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winter cover 2010