ArticleeLife2017
Dynamic modulation of decision biases by brainstem arousal systems.
Article in eLife, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 171 papers.
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Who cites it
171 citing papers in PubMed.
- Distinct Roles of Dopamine and Noradrenaline in Incidental Memory.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Fluctuations in arousal reflect latent state transitions that facilitate behavioural optimization.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Task-irrelevant stimuli robustly drive phasic pupil-linked arousal but only weakly affect memory formation.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The selective dynamics of proactive and reactive control in GAD: A taVNS study using hierarchical drift diffusion modeling.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Modality-general sensitivity of pupil responses to regularity violations.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- Sensory-to-motor transformations: From serial pipelines to dynamic, distributed processes.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Brain-wide arousal signals are segregated from movement planning in the superior colliculus of the macaque.eLife · 2026Article
- The Pupil-Brain System at Rest: Spontaneous Pupil Fluctuations as Markers of Neuromodulatory and Network Dynamics.Psychophysiology · 2026Review
- Arousal shapes motivation: an integrative framework for understanding motivational deficits.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Pulsed taVNS-Elicited Pupil Dilation: Effects of Intermixed Stimulation, Sham Location, and Respiratory Phase.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Linking reaction time variability to physiological markers of arousal across timescales.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Pupil-based arousal self-regulation: impact on physiological and affective responses to emotional stimuli.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Phasic and tonic arousal distinctly shape human decision bias.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Most Ventral Pallidal Cholinergic Neurons Are Bursting Basal Forebrain Cholinergic Neurons with Mesocorticolimbic Connectivity.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Pupil dilation as a marker of attention/effort in aging and mild cognitive impairment.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Roles of target detection and behavioral response on pupil dilation and concurrent memory: An attentional boost study.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2026Article
- Sensory adaptation supports flexible evidence accumulation during perceptual decision making.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cortex-wide Dynamics of Internal Decisions About Behavioral Context.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
111 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Decision-makers often arrive at different choices when faced with repeated presentations of the same evidence. Variability of behavior is commonly attributed to noise in the brain's decision-making machinery. We hypothesized that phasic responses of brainstem arousal systems are a significant source of this variability. We tracked pupil responses (a proxy of phasic arousal) during sensory-motor decisions in humans, across different sensory modalities and task protocols. Large pupil responses generally predicted a reduction in decision bias. Using fMRI, we showed that the pupil-linked bias reduction was (i) accompanied by a modulation of choice-encoding pattern signals in parietal and prefrontal cortex and (ii) predicted by phasic, pupil-linked responses of a number of neuromodulatory brainstem centers involved in the control of cortical arousal state, including the noradrenergic locus coeruleus. We conclude that phasic arousal suppresses decision bias on a trial-by-trial basis, thus accounting for a significant component of the variability of choice behavior.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.