Sunil Kumar Hota and Kalpana Kumari Barhwal
There has been growing evidence on functional connectivity between brain regions that otherwise are not directly connected structurally, resulting in a paradigm shift from neo-phrenology to a network centric approach for understanding cognitive functions. Considering the burgeoning evidence on co-localization of brain areas associated with reward and punishment and competitive firing of neuronal populations, we here propose a three realm model for decision making and behaviour. According to the model, the brain encodes information either in the context of a reward or a punishment in different brain regions, based on associative function of the region. The neural networks associated with reward form a reward realm and those associated with punishment form the punishment realm. Decision making and behaviour is governed by a computational evaluation of this information of reward or punishment to a particular situation and is biased towards the realm that shows higher firing of neurons. On failure to associate a situation with information stored in the reward and punishment realms, the curiosity realm is activated to gather new information which is then stored either in the reward or punishment realm for future reference. This model provides a plausible explanation for the interaction of structurally unrelated brain regions during various cognitive functions and the co-localization of brain regional activity during both reward and punishment. The three realm model also explains for the development of personality traits and decision making based on conceptual and perceptual memory