Decision-making in Health and disease

We are constantly making decisions, from automatic reflexes such as stopping at a red traffic light, to complex and agonising choices such as which house to buy. In this symposium we heard about the factors that affect our decisions, and the brain processes that implement them. In the first two talks we heard about how the brain gathers information over time, and how it learns to weigh up the different options based on how valuable they are to us now and in the future. As we went through the talks, we highlighted how bringing together mathematical models with knowledge about the brain and our behaviour can give us a richer understanding of the plethora of choices that affect our lives.