‘Free will,’ as we commonly think of it, does not exist: the brain often makes decisions even before we become aware of the choice. This makes it simple to predict a person’s actions based on previous behavioural patterns. Here, HSE University Professor Vasily Klucharev explains this understanding in his own words.
Researchers from HSE University and York University have become the first to analyse the results of 82 functional neuroimaging studies on working memory mechanisms in different adult age groups. The meta-analyses showed that across studies the agreement of various areas of the prefrontal cortex decreases with ageing, suggesting reorganization of brain function during healthy aging. The results have been published in the paper ‘Meta-analyses of the n-back working memory task: fMRI evidence of age-related changes in prefrontal cortex involvement across the adult lifespan’.
Researchers from the Higher School of Economics conducted a meta-analysis by compiling data across 17 neuroimaging studies on working memory in children.The data obtained shows concordance in frontoparietal regions recognized for their role in working memory as well as regions not typically highlighted as part of the working memory network, such as the insula.
Luca Iemi from HSE University, jointly with Niko A Busch from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, have found that the state of excitability of the brain — indexed byspontaneous neural oscillations - biases a person’s subjective perceptual experience, rather than their decision-making strategy. The findings will be published in eNeurounder the title ‘Moment-to-moment fluctuations in neuronal excitability bias subjective perception rather than decision-making’.
