Value-Based Decision Making

This chapter presents a broad overview of the existing model of value-based decision making in the brain. It begins with a brief overview of the basic elements of the standard model by compartmentalizing, for didactic purposes, the brain networks involved in learning and storing value (the value system) and the brain networks involved in selection of an option from a limited set (the choice system). This brief overview is followed by a more detailed explication of each of these two systems. The relationship between frontal valuation circuits and fronto-parietal choice circuits is also discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of an emerging alternative to the standard model before showing how perceptual decision-making models like those described in Chapter 19 can be integrated into the standard model of value-based decision making.