Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.

Overview

Human performance in decision terms has been the subject of active research from several perspectives. From a psychological perspective, it is necessary to examine individual decisions in the context of a set of needs, preferences an individual has and values they seek. From a cognitive perspective, the decision making process must be regarded as a continuous process integrated in the interaction with the environment. From a normative perspective, the analysis of individual decisions is concerned with the logic of decision making and rationality and the invariant choice it leads to.

Yet, at another level, it might be regarded as a problem solving activity which is terminated when a satisfactory solution is reached. Therefore, decision making is a reasoning or emotional process which can be rational or irrational, can be based on explicit assumptions or tacit assumptions.

One must keep in mind that most decisions are made unconsciously. Jim Nightingale, Author of ''Think Smart-Act Smart'', states that "we simply decide without thinking much about the decision process." In a controlled environment, such as a classroom, instructors encourage students to weigh pros and cons before making a decision. However in the real world, most of our decisions are made unconsciously in our mind because frankly, it would take too much time to sit down and list the pros and cons of each decision we must make on a daily basis.

Logical decision making is an important part of all science-based professions, where specialists apply their knowledge in a given area to making informed decisions. For example, medical decision making often involves making a diagnosis and selecting an appropriate treatment. Some research using naturalistic methods shows, however, that in situations with higher time pressure, higher stakes, or increased ambiguities, experts use intuitive decision making rather than structured approaches, following a recognition primed decision approach to fit a set of indicators into the expert's experience and immediately arrive at a satisfactory course of action without weighing alternatives. Recent robust decision efforts have formally integrated uncertainty into the decision making process. However, Decision Analysis, recognized and included uncertainties with a structured and rationally justifiable method of decision making since its conception in 1964.

A major part of decision making involves the analysis of a finite set of alternatives described in terms of some evaluative criteria. These criteria may be benefit or cost in nature. Then the problem might be to rank these alternatives in terms of how attractive they are to the decision maker(s) when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Another goal might be to just find the best alternative or to determine the relative total priority of each alternative (for instance, if alternatives represent projects competing for funds) when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Solving such problems is the focus of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) also known as multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). This area of decision making, although it is very old and has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners, is still highly debated as there are many MCDA / MCDM methods which may yield very different results when they are applied on exactly the same data. This leads to the formulation of a decision making paradox.

Problem Analysis vs Decision Making

It is important to differentiate between problem analysis and decision making. The concepts are completely separate from one another. Problem analysis must be done first, then the information gathered in that process may be used towards decision making.

Problem Analysis • Analyze performance, what should the results be against what they actually are • Problems are merely deviations from performance standards • Problem must be precisely identified and described • Problems are caused by some change from a distinctive feature • Something can always be used to distinguish between what has and hasn't been effected by a cause • Causes to problems can be deducted from relevant changes found in analyzing the problem • Most likely cause to a problem is the one that exactly explains all the facts

Decision Making • Objectives must first be established • Objectives must be classified and placed in order of importance • Alternative actions must be developed • The alternative must be evaluated against all the objectives • The alternative that is able to achieve all the objectives is the tentative decision • The tentative decision is evaluated for more possible consequences • The decisive actions are taken, and additional actions are taken to prevent any adverse consequences from becoming problems and starting both systems (problem analysis and decision making) all over again • There are steps that are generally followed that result in a decision model that can be used to determine an optimal production plan.

Everyday techniques

Some of the decision making techniques people use in everyday life include:

Pros and Cons: Listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option, popularized by Plato and Benjamin Franklin

Simple Prioritization: Choosing the alternative with the highest probability-weighted utility for each alternative (see Decision Analysis)

Satisficing: using the first acceptable option found

Acquiesce to a person in authority or an "expert", just following orders

Flipism: Flipping a coin, cutting a deck of playing cards, and other random or coincidence methods

Prayer, tarot cards, astrology, augurs, revelation, or other forms of divination

Taking the most opposite action compared to the advice of mistrusted authorities (parents, police officers, partners ...)

Decision-Making Stages

Developed by B. Aubrey Fisher, there are four stages that should be involved in all group decision making. These stages, or sometimes called phases, are important for the decision-making process to begin

Orientation stage- This phase is where members meet for the first time and start to get to know each other.

Conflict stage- Once group members become familiar with each other, disputes, little fights and arguments occur. Group members eventually work it out.

Emergence stage- The group begins to clear up vague opinions by talking about them.

Reinforcement stage- Members finally make a decision, while justifying themselves that it was the right decision.

Decision-Making Steps

When in an organization and faced with a difficult decision, there are several steps one can take to ensure the best possible solutions will be decided. These steps are put into seven effective ways to go about this decision making process (McMahon 2007).

The first step - Outline your goal and outcome. This will enable decision makers to see exactly what they are trying to accomplish and keep them on a specific path.

The second step - Gather data. This will help decision makers have actual evidence to help them come up with a solution.

The third step - Brainstorm to develop alternatives. Coming up with more than one solution ables you to see which one can actually work.

The fourth step - List pros and cons of each alternative. With the list of pros and cons, you can eliminate the solutions that have more cons than pros, making your decision easier.

The fifth step - Make the decision. Once you analyze each solution, you should pick the one that has many pros (or the pros that are most significant), and is a solution that everyone can agree with.

The sixth step - Immediately take action. Once the decision is picked, you should implement it right away.

The seventh step - Learn from, and reflect on the decision making. This step allows you to see what you did right and wrong when coming up, and putting the decision to use.

Cognitive and personal biases

Biases can creep into our decision making processes. Many different people have made a decision about the same question (''e.g.'' "Should I have a doctor look at this troubling breast cancer symptom I've discovered?" "Why did I ignore the evidence that the project was going over budget?") and then craft potential cognitive interventions aimed at improving decision making outcomes.

Below is a list of some of the more commonly debated cognitive biases. Selective search for evidence (a.k.a. Confirmation bias in psychology) (Scott Plous, 1993) – We tend to be willing to gather facts that support certain conclusions but disregard other facts that support different conclusions. Individuals who are highly defensive in this manner show significantly greater left prefrontal cortex activity as measured by EEG than do less defensive individuals.

Premature termination of search for evidence – We tend to accept the first alternative that looks like it might work.

Inertia – Unwillingness to change thought patterns that we have used in the past in the face of new circumstances.

Selective perception – We actively screen-out information that we do not think is important. (See prejudice.) In one demonstration of this effect, discounting of arguments with which one disagrees (by judging them as untrue or irrelevant) was decreased by selective activation of right prefrontal cortex. Wishful thinking or optimism bias – We tend to want to see things in a positive light and this can distort our perception and thinking.

Choice-supportive bias occurs when we distort our memories of chosen and rejected options to make the chosen options seem more attractive.

Recency – We tend to place more attention on more recent information and either ignore or forget more distant information. (See semantic priming.) The opposite effect in the first set of data or other information is termed Primacy effect (Plous, 1993).

Repetition bias – A willingness to believe what we have been told most often and by the greatest number of different sources.

Anchoring and adjustment – Decisions are unduly influenced by initial information that shapes our view of subsequent information.

Group think – Peer pressure to conform to the opinions held by the group.

Source credibility bias – We reject something if we have a bias against the person, organization, or group to which the person belongs: We are inclined to accept a statement by someone we like. (See prejudice.)

Incremental decision making and escalating commitment – We look at a decision as a small step in a process and this tends to perpetuate a series of similar decisions. This can be contrasted with zero-based decision making. (See slippery slope.)

Attribution asymmetry – We tend to attribute our success to our abilities and talents, but we attribute our failures to bad luck and external factors. We attribute other's success to good luck, and their failures to their mistakes.

Role fulfillment (Self Fulfilling Prophecy) – We conform to the decision making expectations that others have of someone in our position.

Underestimating uncertainty and the illusion of control – We tend to underestimate future uncertainty because we tend to believe we have more control over events than we really do. We believe we have control to minimize potential problems in our decisions.

Framing bias is best avoided by using numeracy with absolute measures of efficacy.

Reference class forecasting was developed to eliminate or reduce cognitive biases in decision making.

Post decision analysis

Evaluation and analysis of past decisions is complementary to decision making; see also mental accounting.

Cognitive styles

Influence of Briggs Myers type

According to behavioralist Isabel Briggs Myers, a person's decision making process depends to a significant degree on their cognitive style. Myers developed a set of four bi-polar dimensions, called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The terminal points on these dimensions are: ''thinking'' and ''feeling''; ''extroversion'' and ''introversion''; ''judgment'' and ''perception''; and ''sensing'' and ''intuition''. She claimed that a person's decision making style correlates well with how they score on these four dimensions. For example, someone who scored near the thinking, extroversion, sensing, and judgment ends of the dimensions would tend to have a logical, analytical, objective, critical, and empirical decision making style. However, some psychologists say that the MBTI lacks reliability and validity and is poorly constructed.

Other studies suggest that these national or cross-cultural differences exist across entire societies. For example, Maris Martinsons has found that American, Japanese and Chinese business leaders each exhibit a distinctive national style of decision making.

Optimizing vs. satisficing

Herbert Simon coined the phrase "bounded rationality" to express the idea that human decision-making is limited by available information, available time, and the information-processing ability of the mind. Simon also defined two cognitive styles: ''maximizers'' try to make an optimal decision, whereas ''satisficers'' simply try to find a solution that is "good enough". Maximizers tend to take longer making decisions due to the need to maximize performance across all variables and make tradeoffs carefully; they also tend to more often regret their decisions (perhaps because they are more able than satisficers to recognise that a decision turned out to be sub-optimal).

Combinatoral vs. positional

Styles and methods of decision making were elaborated by the founder of Predispositioning Theory, Aron Katsenelinboigen. In his analysis on styles and methods Katsenelinboigen referred to the game of chess, saying that “chess does disclose various methods of operation, notably the creation of predisposition—methods which may be applicable to other, more complex systems.”

In his book Katsenelinboigen states that apart from the methods (reactive and selective) and sub-methods (randomization, predispositioning, programming), there are two major styles – positional and combinational. Both styles are utilized in the game of chess. According to Katsenelinboigen, the two styles reflect two basic approaches to the uncertainty: deterministic (combinational style) and indeterministic (positional style). Katsenelinboigen’s definition of the two styles are the following. The combinational style is characterized by

a very narrow, clearly defined, primarily material goal, and

a program that links the initial position with the final outcome.

In defining the combinational style in chess, Katsenelinboigen writes:

The combinational style features a clearly formulated limited objective, namely the capture of material (the main constituent element of a chess position). The objective is implemented via a well-defined and in some cases in a unique sequence of moves aimed at reaching the set goal. As a rule, this sequence leaves no options for the opponent. Finding a combinational objective allows the player to focus all his energies on efficient execution, that is, the player’s analysis may be limited to the pieces directly partaking in the combination. This approach is the crux of the combination and the combinational style of play.

The positional style is distinguished by

a positional goal and

a formation of semi-complete linkages between the initial step and final outcome.

“Unlike the combinational player, the positional player is occupied, first and foremost, with the elaboration of the position that will allow him to develop in the unknown future. In playing the positional style, the player must evaluate relational and material parameters as independent variables. ( … ) The positional style gives the player the opportunity to develop a position until it becomes pregnant with a combination. However, the combination is not the final goal of the positional player—it helps him to achieve the desirable, keeping in mind a predisposition for the future development. The Pyrrhic victory is the best example of one’s inability to think positionally.”

The positional style serves to

a) create a predisposition to the future development of the position; b) induce the environment in a certain way; c) absorb an unexpected outcome in one’s favor; d) avoid the negative aspects of unexpected outcomes.

Katsenelinboigen writes: “As the game progressed and defense became more sophisticated the combinational style of play declined. . . . The positional style of chess does not eliminate the combinational one with its attempt to see the entire program of action in advance. The positional style merely prepares the transformation to a combination when the latter becomes feasible.”

Neuroscience perspective

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), orbitofrontal cortex (and the overlapping ventromedial prefrontal cortex) are brain regions involved in decision making processes. A recent neuroimaging study found distinctive patterns of neural activation in these regions depending on whether decisions were made on the basis of personal volition or following directions from someone else. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex have difficulty making advantageous decisions.

A recent study involving Rhesus monkeys found that neurons in the parietal cortex not only represent the formation of a decision but also signal the degree of certainty (or "confidence") associated with the decision. Another recent study found that lesions to the ACC in the macaque resulted in impaired decision making in the long run of reinforcement guided tasks suggesting that the ACC may be involved in evaluating past reinforcement information and guiding future action.

Emotion appears to aid the decision making process: Decision making often occurs in the face of uncertainty about whether one's choices will lead to benefit or harm (see also Risk). The somatic-marker hypothesis is a neurobiological theory of how decisions are made in the face of uncertain outcome. This theory holds that such decisions are aided by emotions, in the form of bodily states, that are elicited during the deliberation of future consequences and that mark different options for behavior as being advantageous or disadvantageous. This process involves an interplay between neural systems that elicit emotional/bodily states and neural systems that map these emotional/bodily states.

Although it is unclear whether the studies generalize to all processing, there is evidence that volitional movements are initiated, not by the conscious decision making self, but by the subconscious. See the Neuroscience of free will.

See also

References

Category:Decision theory Category:Neuropsychological assessment Category:Unsolved problems in neuroscience Category:Critical thinking

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Professor Henry Mintzberg, (born in Montreal, September 2, 1939) is an internationally renowned academic and author on business and management. He is currently the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he has been teaching since 1968.

Early life

He earned his Master's degree in Management and Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1965 and 1968 respectively. His undergraduate degree in business is from McGill University.

Career

Henry Mintzberg writes prolifically on the topics of management and business strategy, with more than 150 articles and fifteen books to his name. His seminal book, ''The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning'' , criticizes some of the practices of strategic planning today.

He recently published a book entitled ''Managers Not MBAs'' which outlines what he believes to be wrong with management education today. Rather controversially, Mintzberg claims that prestigious graduate management schools like Harvard Business School and the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania are obsessed with numbers and that their overzealous attempts to make management a science are damaging the discipline of management. Mintzberg advocates more emphasis on post graduate programs that educate practicing managers (rather than students with little real world experience) by relying upon action learning and insights from their own problems and experiences.

Ironically, although Professor Mintzberg is quite critical about the strategy consulting business, he has twice won the McKinsey Award for publishing the best article in the Harvard Business Review. Also, he is credited with co-creating the organigraph, which is taught in business schools.

From 1991 to 1999, he was a visiting professor at INSEAD.

In 1997 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1998 he was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec. He is now a member of the Strategic Management Society.

Mintzberg runs two programs which have been designed to teach his alternative approach to management and strategic planning at McGill University: the International Masters in Practicing Management (I.M.P.M.) in association with the McGill Executive Institute and the International Masters for Health Leadership (I.M.H.L.). With Phil LeNir, he owns Coaching Ourselves International, a private company using his alternative approach for management development directly in the workplace.

Personal life

He is married to Sasha Sadilova and has two children from a previous marriage, Susie and Lisa.

Theory on Organizational Forms

'''The organizational configurations framework of Mintzberg is a model that describes six valid organizational configurations: # Entrepreneurial organization # Machine organization # Professional organization # Diversified organization # Innovative organization # Missionary organization

Regarding the coordination between different tasks, Mintzberg defines the following mechanisms:'''

# Mutual adjustment, which achieves coordination by the simple process of informal communication (as between two operating employees) # Direct supervision, is achieved by having one person issue orders or instructions to several others whose work interrelates (as when a boss tells others what is to be done, one step at a time) # Standardization of work processes, which achieves coordination by specifying the work processes of people carrying out interrelated tasks (those standards usually being developed in the technostructure to be carried out in the operating core, as in the case of the work instructions that come out of time-and-motion studies) # Standardization of outputs, which achieves coordination by specifying the results of different work (again usually developed in the technostructure, as in a financial plan that specifies subunit performance targets or specifications that outline the dimensions of a product to be produced) # Standardization of skills (as well as knowledge), in which different work is coordinated by virtue of the related training the workers have received (as in medical specialists - say a surgeon and an anesthetist in an operating room –responding almost automatically to each other’s standardized procedures) # Standardization of norms, in which it is the norms infusing the work that are controlled, usually for the entire organization, so that everyone functions according to the same set of beliefs (as in a religious order)

According to the organizational configurations model of Mintzberg each organization can consist of a maximum of six basic parts: # Strategic Apex (top management) # Middle Line (middle management) # Operating Core (operations, operational processes) # Technostructure (analysts that design systems, processes, etc.) # Support Staff (support outside of operating workflow) # Ideology (halo of beliefs and traditions; norms, values, culture)

Bibliography

{| |- |1973||''The Nature of Managerial Work'' |- |1979||''The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of the Research'' |- |1983||''Power In and Around Organizations'' |- |1983||''Structure in fives: Designing Effective Organizations'' |- |1989||''Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations'' |- |1991||''The Strategy Process:'' (with Joe Lampel, Sumantra Ghoshal and J.B. Quinn) |- |1994||''The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Reconceiving the Roles for Planning, Plans, Planners'' |- |1998||''Strategy Safari'' (with Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel) |- |2000||''Managing Publicly'' (with Jacques Bourgault) |- |2000||''Why I Hate Flying'' |- |2004||''Managers not MBAs'' |- |2005||''Strategy Bites back'' |- |2007||''Tracking Strategies: Towards a General Theory of Strategy Formation'' |- |2009||''Managing'' |- |2009||''Management? It's not What you Think!'' (with Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel) |- |2011||''Managing the Myths of Health Care'' (forthcoming) |}

References

Notes

External links

Official site

CoachingOurselves site

Category:Canadian business theorists Category:McGill University faculty Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Category:Officers of the National Order of Quebec Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:People from Montreal Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:McGill University alumni Category:Anglophone Quebec people Category:Concordia University alumni Category:INSEAD faculty

ar:هنري مينتسبرج da:Henry Mintzberg de:Henry Mintzberg es:Henry Mintzberg eu:Henry Mintzberg fr:Henry Mintzberg id:Henry Mintzberg it:Henry Mintzberg he:הנרי מינצברג nl:Henry Mintzberg ja:ヘンリー・ミンツバーグ no:Henry Mintzberg pl:Henry Mintzberg pt:Henry Mintzberg ru:Минцберг, Генри uk:Генрі Мінцберг

Name	Eric Richard Kandel
Birth date	November 07, 1929
Birth place	Vienna, Austria
Fields	psychiatrist and neuroscientist
Workplaces	Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Alma mater	New York University Medical School Harvard University
Known for	physiology of memory
Awards	Harvey Prize (1993)Wolf Prize in Medicine (1999)Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2000
Signature
Footnotes	}}

Eric Richard Kandel (born November 7, 1929) is an American neuropsychiatrist who was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard.

Kandel is professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Senior Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was also the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, which is now the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia. Kandel authored ''In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind'' (WW Norton), which chronicles his life and research. The book was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Science and Technology.

Early years

Kandel was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria, in a middle-class Jewish family. His mother, Charlotte Zimels, was born in 1897 in Kolomyya, Pokuttya (modern Ukraine), and came from a well-educated middle-class family. At that time Kolomyya was in Eastern Poland. His father was born in 1898 into a poor family in Olesko, Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary). At the beginning of World War I his parents moved to Vienna where they met and married in 1923, shortly after Hermann Kandel, Eric's father, had established a toy store. They were a thoroughly assimilated and acculturated family, who had to leave Austria after the country had been annexed by Germany in March 1938. Aryanization (Arisierung) started; attacks on Jews escalated; Jewish property was confiscated. Eventually, when Eric was 9, he and his brother Ludwig, 14, boarded the "Gerolstein" at Antwerp in Belgium and joined their uncle in Brooklyn on May 11, 1939. Later his parents succeeded in moving to the US.

(When Kandel won the Nobel Prize in 2000, it was claimed in Vienna that he was an "Austrian" Nobel, something he found "typically Viennese: very opportunistic, very disingenuous, somewhat hypocritical." Afterwards, he received a letter from Austria's President Klestil asking, `"How can we recognize you?" Kandel then proposed to have a symposium on the response of Austria to National Socialism.)

After arriving in the United States, and settling in Brooklyn, Kandel was tutored by his grandfather in Judaic studies, and was accepted at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, graduating in 1944. He attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, a Public high school.

Kandel's initial intellectual interests lay in the area of history. (History and Literature was his undergraduate major at Harvard University.) He wrote an honors dissertation on "The Attitude Toward National Socialism of Three German Writers: Carl Zuckmayer, Hans Carossa, and Ernst Jünger." While at Harvard, a place dominated by the work of B. F. Skinner, Kandel became interested in learning and memory. It should be noted, however, that while Skinner championed a strict separation of psychology, as its own level of discourse, from biological considerations such as neurology, Kandel's work is essentially centered on an explication of the relationships between psychology and neurology.

The world of neuroscience was first opened up to Kandel through his interactions with a college girlfriend, Anna Kris, whose parents were Freudian psychoanalysts. Freud, a pioneer in revealing the importance of unconscious neural processes, was at the root of Kandel's interest in the biology of motivation and unconscious and conscious memory.

Medical school and early research

In 1952 he started at the New York University Medical School. By graduation he was firmly interested in the biological basis of the mind. During this time he met his future wife, Denise Bystryn. Kandel was first exposed to research in Harry Grundfest's laboratory at Columbia University. Grundfest was known for using the oscilloscope to demonstrate that action potential conduction velocity depends on axon diameter. The researchers Kandel interacted with were contemplating the technically challenging idea of intracellular recordings of the electrical activity of the relatively small neurons of the vertebrate brain.

After starting his neurobiological work in the difficult thicket of the electrophysiology of the cerebral cortex, Kandel was impressed by the progress that had been made by Stephen Kuffler using a much more experimentally accessible system: neurons isolated from marine invertebrates. After becoming aware of Kuffler's work in 1955, Kandel graduated from medical school and learned from Stanley Crain how to make microelectrodes that could be used for intracellular recordings of relatively large crayfish giant axons.

Karl Lashley, a well-known American neuropsychologist, had tried but failed to identify an anatomical locus for memory storage in the cortex at the surface of the brain. When Kandel joined the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health in 1957, William Beecher Scoville and Brenda Milner had recently described the patient HM, who had lost explicit memory storage following removal of the hippocampus. Kandel took on the task of performing electrophysiological recordings of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Working with Alden Spencer, electrophysiological evidence was found for action potentials in the dendritic trees of hippocampal neurons. They also noticed the spontaneous pace-maker-like activity of these neurons and a robust recurrent inhibition in the hippocampus. With respect to memory, there was nothing in the general electrophysiological properties of hippocampal neurons that suggested why the hippocampus was special for explicit memory storage.

Kandel began to realize that memory storage must rely on modifications in the synaptic connections between neurons and that the complex connectivity of the hippocampus did not provide the best system for study of the detailed function of synapses. Kandel was aware that comparative studies of behavior, such as those by Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and Karl von Frisch had revealed conservation of simple forms of learning across all animals. Kandel felt it would be productive to select a simple animal model that would facilitate electrophysiological analysis of the synaptic changes involved in learning and memory storage. He believed that, ultimately, the results would be found to be applicable to humans. This decision was not without risks since many senior biologists and psychologists believed that nothing useful could be learned about human memory by studying invertebrate physiology.

In 1962, after completing his residency in psychiatry, Kandel went to Paris to learn about the marine mollusc ''Aplysia californica'' from Ladislav Tauc. Kandel had realized that simple forms of learning such as habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning could readily be studied with ganglia isolated from ''Aplysia''. "While recording the behavior of a single cell in a ganglion, one nerve axon pathway to the ganglion could be stimulated weakly electrically as a conditioned [tactile] stimulus, while another pathway was stimulated as an unconditioned [pain] stimulus, following the exact protocol used for classical conditioning with natural stimuli in intact animals." Electrophysiological changes resulting from the combined stimuli could then be traced to specific synapses. In 1965 Kandel published his initial results, including a form of pre-synaptic potentiation that seemed to correspond to a simple form of learning.

Faculty member at New York University Medical School

Kandel took a position in the Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry at the New York University Medical School, eventually forming the Division of Neurobiology and Behavior. Working with Irving Kupferman and Harold Pinsker it was possible to develop protocols for demonstrating simple forms of learning by intact ''Aplysia''. In particular, the now famous gill-withdrawal reflex, by which the tender ''Aplysia'' gill tissue is withdrawn from danger, was shown to be sensitive to both habituation and sensitization. By 1971 Tom Carew joined the research group and helped extend the work from studies restricted to short-term memory to additional experiments that included additional physiological processes required for long-term memory.

By 1981, laboratory members including Terry Walters, Tom Abrams, and Robert Hawkins had been able to extend the ''Aplysia'' system into the study of classical conditioning, a finding which helped close the apparent gap between the simple forms of learning often associated with invertebrates and more complex types of learning more often recognized in vertebrates. Along with the fundamental behavioral studies, other work in the lab traced the neuronal circuits of sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons involved in the learned behaviors. This allowed analysis of the specific synaptic connections that are modified by learning in the intact animals. The results from Kandel's laboratory provided solid evidence for the mechanistic basis of learning as "a change in the functional effectiveness of previously existing excitatory connections."

Molecular changes during learning

Starting in 1966 James Schwartz collaborated with Kandel on a biochemical analysis of changes in neurons associated with learning and memory storage. By this time it was known that long-term memory, unlike short-term memory, involved the synthesis of new proteins. By 1972 they had evidence that the second messenger molecule cyclic AMP (cAMP) was produced in ''Aplysia'' ganglia under conditions that cause short-term memory formation (sensitization). In 1974 the Kandel lab moved to Columbia University as founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. It was soon found that the neurotransmitter serotonin acting to produce the second messenger cAMP is involved in the molecular basis of sensitization of the gill-withdrawal reflex. By 1980, collaboration with Paul Greengard resulted in demonstration that cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) acted in this biochemical pathway in response to elevated levels of cAMP. Steven Siegelbaum identified a potassium channel that could be regulated by PKA, coupling serotonin's effects to altered synaptic electrophysiology.

In 1983 Kandel helped form the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute at Columbia devoted to molecular neural science. The Kandel lab took on the task of identifying proteins that had to be synthesized in order to convert short-term memories into long-lasting memories. One of the nuclear targets for PKA is the transcriptional control protein CREB (cAMP response element binding protein). In collaboration with David Glanzman and Craig Bailey, CREB was identified as being a protein involved in long-term memory storage. One result of CREB activation is an increase in the number of synaptic connections. Thus, short-term memory had been linked to functional changes in existing synapses, while long-term memory was associated with a change in the number of synaptic connections.

Experimental support for Hebbian learning

Some of the synaptic changes observed by Kandel's laboratory provide examples of Hebbian learning. One article describes the role of Hebbian learning in the Aplysia siphon-withdrawal reflex.

The Kandel lab has also performed important experiments using transgenic mice as a system for investigating the molecular basis of memory storage in the vertebrate hippocampus. Kandel's original idea that learning mechanisms would be conserved between all animals has been confirmed. Neurotransmitters, second messenger systems, protein kinases, ion channels, and transcription factors like CREB have been confirmed to function in both vertebrate and invertebrate learning and memory storage.

Kandel is also well known for the textbooks he has helped write such as ''Principles of Neural Science''. Published in 2000 by McGraw-Hill Medical, his textbook focuses on how the brain and neurons work. The book contains visuals and is often used in medical schools for neurological research. Kandel has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, since 1974. His 2006 autobiographical book, "In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind," is a popularized account of his life and career.

Continuing work at Columbia University

Kandel actively contributes to science as a member of the Division of Neurobiology and Behavior at the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. In 2008, he and Daniela Pollak discovered that conditioning mice to associate a specific noise with protection from harm, a behavior called “learned safety,” produced a behavioral antidepressant effect comparable to medications. This finding, reported in ''Neuron'', may inform further studies of the cellular interactions between antidepressants and behavioral treatments. Kandel has been at Columbia University since 1974, and lives in New York City.

Awards

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1983)

Gairdner Foundation International Award (1987)

NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing of the National Academy of Sciences (1988)

National Medal of Science (1988)

Harvey Prize (1993)

Wolf Prize in Medicine (1999)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2000)

Charles A Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Health (1997)

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (2005)

Viktor Frankl Award of the City of Vienna (2008)

He is a member of the prize committee for neuroscience of Kavli Prize.

Filmography

Petra Seeger, ''In Search of Memory'' (2008)

See also

List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References

Further reading

. .

External links

Interview with Kandel June 2006 in German

Eric Kandel’s Faculty Profile in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University

Eric Kandel's Columbia University website

Autobiography at the Nobel Prize website

Science Friday: October 13, 2000 NPR interview

Eric Kandel - A Nobel's Life

Eric R. Kandel's United States Patents

The Kavli Prize Prize Committee Member for neuroscience

Explains a bit about the textbook Kandel wrote

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right|thumb|Victor M. Montori, MD, MScVictor M. Montori, (born, Lima, 1970), is Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. Montori was born and raised in Peru. He completed medical school at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru, before joining the Internal Medicine Residency Program at the Mayo Clinic, where he was eventually named Chief Resident (1999–2000). Following his residency training, Dr. Montori began a Fellowship in Endocrinology, also at the Mayo Clinic, and obtained a Master degree in biomedical research from the Mayo Graduate School. During this training, Montori became interested in evidence-based medicine. He then spent two years at McMaster University in Canada, where he was a research fellow under Gordon Guyatt as a Mayo Foundation Scholar.

At the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Montori is currently a principal investigator of the Knowledge and Encounter Research (KER) Unit, a multidisciplnary group of researchers focused on translating the best available research evidence into clinical practice through evidence synthesis (e.g., meta-analysis) and through enhancements in the patient-clinician encounter.

Dr. Montori is a recognized teacher of evidence-based medicine, promoting the ideals of incorporating the best available research evidence, the patient context, and the patient values and preferences in making clinical decisions. He has been an active contributor to the Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature. His lecture on the End of Evidence-based Medicine has brought his message that the corruption of research (e.g., through stopping clinical trials earlier than planned ) and the way doctors practice today (without taking into account the values, goals, expectations, and preferences of patients) is signaling the end of evidence-based medicine, and that the solution lies in using the techniques of evidence-based medicine to (a) assess how believable are the results of scientific studies, (b) how hyped are the results, (c) and how to apply those results to patients. He promotes an approach to research and practice that reclaims a commitment to the patient, promoting a patient revolution.

In that capacity, Dr. Montori won an American Diabetes Association Clinical Research Award and has developed diabetes medication cards that can help patients with diabetes make better choices about their drugs. In addition, he has promoted the measurement of patient important outcomes in diabetes trials and a focus on cardiovascular risk reduction rather than glycemic control in the care of these patients with type 2 diabetes.

The KER UNIT is involved in disseminating and implementing the GRADE Standard for guideline formulation and grading of recommendations in support of specialty medical societies like the Endocrine Society. It also develops decision aids to help patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, and their clinicians make choices about therapies that are consistent with the best available research evidence and the goals for life and healthcare of the informed patient.

Dr. Montori also has served as director of research and education for the acclaimed SPARC Innovation Program at the Mayo Clinic, the first service R&D laboratory in healthcare. In this capacity he is said to have the ability to cross "back and forth between design and research with fluency"

Montori is recognized for promoting the practice of evidence-based medicine in endocrinology and diabetes care. He has edited two volumes on the topic and has published more than 200 papers. Montori also collaborated in the development of Normalization Process Theory.

References

Links

KER Unit Homepage

Mayo Clinic

Lee Aase and the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

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