title: Preconscious prediction of a driver's decision using intracranial recordings.
abstract: While driving, we make numerous conscious decisions such as route and turn direction selection. Although drivers are held responsible, the neural processes that govern such decisions are not clear. We recorded intracranial EEG signals from six patients engaged in a computer-based driving simulator. Patients decided which way to turn (left/right) and subsequently reported the time of the decision. We show that power modulations of gamma band oscillations (30-100 Hz) preceding the reported time of decision (up to 5.5 sec) allow prediction of decision content with high accuracy (up to 82.4%) on a trial-by-trial basis, irrespective of subsequent motor output. Moreover, these modulations exhibited a spatiotemporal gradient, differentiating left/right decisions earliest in premotor cortices and later in more anterior and lateral regions. Our results suggest a preconscious role for the premotor cortices in early stages of decision-making, which permits foreseeing and perhaps modifying the content of real-life human choices before they are consciously made.
authors.affiliation: Tel Aviv University.
authors.forename: Omri
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.affiliation: Tel Aviv University.
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mukamel
authors.affiliation: University of California Los Angeles.|Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
authors.forename: Ariel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tankus
authors.affiliation: Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Jonathan D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Rosenblatt
authors.affiliation: Tel Aviv University.
authors.forename: Yehezkel
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yeshurun
authors.affiliation: Tel Aviv University.|University of California Los Angeles.|Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
authors.forename: Itzhak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fried
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D065818:Gamma Rhythm; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014584:User-Computer Interface