Big decisions by small networks

Abstract

The primate brain is able to guide complex decisions that can rapidly be adapted to changing constraints. Unfortunately, the vast numbers of highly interconnected neurons that seem to be needed make it difficult to study the cellular mechanisms that underlie the flexible combination of stored and acute information during a decision. Established simpler networks, particularly with few and identified neurons, would lend themselves more readily to such a dissection. But can simple networks implement complex and flexible decisions similarly? After a brief overview of complex decisions in primates and of decision-making in simple networks, I argue that simpler systems can combine complexity with accessibility at the cellular level. Indeed, examination of a network in fish may help in dissecting key mechanisms of complex and flexible decision-making in an established model of synaptic plasticity at the level of identified neurons.