Sophisticated approval voting, ignorance priors, and plurality heuristics: a behavioral social choice analysis in a Thurstonian framework.

This project reconciles historically distinct paradigms at the interface between individual and social choice theory, as well as between rational and behavioral decision theory. The authors combine a utility-maximizing prescriptive rule for sophisticated approval voting with the ignorance prior heuristic from behavioral decision research and two types of plurality heuristics to model approval voting behavior. When using a sincere plurality heuristic, voters simplify their decision process by voting for their single favorite candidate.

Changes in the spike activity of neurons in the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus in humans during performance of a voluntary movement.

The responses of neurons in the ventrolateral nucleus (VL) of the thalamus were studied in humans during performance of voluntary motor tests; recordings were made with microelectrodes during stereotaxic operations in patients with Parkinson's disease. Two previously classified types of polyvalent neurons (A, B) were found to show different patterns of responses during the functional stages of carrying out a voluntary movement (preparation, initiation, performance). A and B neurons showed concordant changes in the dynamics of ongoing network activity in the form of linked (activation-inhibition) and synergic (activation) response patterns, correlating with the preparation-trigger and performance phases of movements.

Analysis of evoked activity patterns of human thalamic ventrolateral neurons during verbally ordered voluntary movements.

In the human thalamic ventralis lateralis nucleus the responses of 184 single units to verbally ordered voluntary movements and some somatosensory stimulations were studied by microelectrode recording technique during 38 stereotactic operations on parkinsonian patients. The tests were carried out on the same previously examined population of neurons classified into two groups, named A- and B-types according to the functional criteria of their intrinsic structure of spontaneous activity patterns. The evaluation of the responses of these units during functionally different phases of a voluntary movement (preparation, initiation, execution, after-effect) by means of the principal component analysis and correlation techniques confirmed the functional differences between A- and B-types of neurons and their polyvalent convergent nature.

[Changes in the impulse activity of neurons of the human thalamic ventrolateral nucleus during voluntary movement].

Functional differences were revealed in evoked activity of two types (A and B) of units of the human thalamic ventro-lateral nucleus (VL). Collective activities of these polyfunctional neurons were selectively related to triggering and execution phases of movement. Common character of dynamics of the responses seems to be due to similar polyfunctional nature as well as to the functional role of these two complementary elements in the motor signal transmission.