The Effect of Depression in Decision Making Process : Based on Quantitative Methodology / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

The increasing number of patients with depression is a serious social issue in contemporary Korean society. To fully understand the pathophysiology of depression, this paper reviewed how depression affects the decision making process of humans. Various recent studies in behavioral economics, mathematics, medicine, and neurobiology have shown how humans make decisions and how emotional disturbances, such as depressive disorder, affect this process. There has been great progress in behavioral economics during this decade, and numerous experiments have been designed to evaluate decision making process in humans. In general, economic decision making is evaluated using the Iowa Gambling Task, and social decision making is assessed using the ultimatum game. Numerous research studies have analyzed the performance and reaction of patients with depression in these games. As a result of the advancement of neurophysiology, research has successfully identified the part of the brain that causes the specific results of tests being conducted on patients with depression. Meanwhile, computational neuroscientists have established decision making models based on bayesian framework. These models also match with the neuroanatomy. Although a large part remains unclear, researchers look forward to achieving a better understanding in depression by analyzing the distinct patterns of responses that patients under depression show in the experiment of behavioral economics.