Trial-by-trial analysis of neuronal activity in monkeys performing a decision-making task reveals the neural correlates of behaviours including wavering, hesitation and sudden changes of mind.

Humans supplement complex, resource-demanding strategies with simple heuristics for solving the exploration-exploitation dilemma, and noradrenaline functioning controls their utilisation.

Cooperation between model-free and model-based control systems is boosted by enhancing dopamine levels.

A novel animal model of economic decision-making captures complex patterns of choice behavior similar to those of humans, opening the way for mechanistic studies to probe the neural basis for this important form of executive function.

Probability of upcoming actions modulates subclasses of neurons in frontoparietal motor-planning areas in a complementary fashion and frontal-lobe processing takes the leading role when primates commit to a decision.

People compete by trying to outsmart their opponents as long as they win, but show random behavior, and neural signs of suppressing knowledge about opponents’ strategies, when they lose.

The readiness potential—a long-established neural precursor of voluntary action claimed to precede the onset of the conscious decision to move—is absent, or at least significantly reduced, for deliberate decisions.

A simple and robust statistical test for neuronal stimulus response, that outperforms PSTH-based approaches such as t-tests and ANOVAs.

Replay of recently experienced trajectories during a decision task is coupled with more effective adaptation to change, whereas replay during rest is associated with limited decision making flexibility.

Quantitative modeling of inactivations shows the prefrontal cortex (but not parietal cortex) of the rat is obligatory for decisions guided by evidence accumulating longer than 240 ms.