ABSTRACT
Many disorders of the central nervous system affect judgment and decision making. Along with other impairments of “executive function,” these symptoms have been challenging to understand within a classical neurological-localizationist framework, beyond a general link to the frontal lobes. Notwithstanding these dif culties, the fact that decision making de cits can emerge in neurological diseases provides a starting point for determining the neural circuits that underlie them. This method of enquiry has several advantages: from a clinical perspective, a better understanding of brain-behavior relationships can help in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of disordered decision making. From a basic science perspective, this approach provides the capacity to test two main questions. The rst concerns the behaviors themselves and the second the brain substrates of those behaviors.
