Have you ever thought about why two drivers see the same congested road conditions, one slamming on the accelerator and rushing in, while the other carefully brakes to avoid it? In fact, before they make any action, their brain has already made a secret decision. And this decision did not come suddenly, it was like a meticulously rehearsed stage play with a unified "script", performed by billions of brain cell "actors" together. A recent study published in the journal Nature has unveiled the mystery of a unified "script". Scientists from Princeton University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Stanford University, and Boston University have revealed for the first time how the brain makes unified decisions through a group of seemingly chaotic but actually orderly neuronal activities. The brain has approximately 86 billion neurons, each of which is a small 'protagonist'. When faced with complex choices, such as whether to change lanes or not, or whether to buy that piece of clothing, these neurons do not immediately reach a consensus. On the contrary, they will each emit different signals, as if they are going to perform a chaotic show. But new research has found that although each neuron appears to be acting independently, they actually follow the same "brain script" - a hidden "underlying plot" that guides all neurons towards the same outcome. To understand this mechanism, scientists designed an experiment to train rhesus monkeys to determine which color (red or green) dominates on the screen. When monkeys were thinking, scientists recorded the neural activity in the relevant areas of their brains. It was found that in the same task, the reactions of different neurons do vary greatly - which once led people to mistakenly believe that the brain's decision-making process is extremely complex and difficult to predict. But these changes are actually driven by two key factors: preference adjustment and neurodynamic terrain. Preference adjustment refers to the fact that each neuron has its own choice, with some preferring to "choose red" and others preferring "choose green"; The neurodynamic terrain metaphor describes the entire neural activity as a small ball rolling on a terrain, with valleys representing the final choice. The "terrain" of simple tasks is steep, and the ball quickly rolls into the valley, making decisions fast and decisive; The terrain of difficult tasks is flat, and the ball is prone to swaying left and right, leading to hesitation and even mistakes. Among them, each neuron has its own unique way of responding, but is also controlled by a "script". Or, in other words, these "actors" have different performance modes and roles, but they are all driving the development of the same plot. In the end, the brain entered a stable decision-making state. This discovery not only helps people better understand how the brain makes decisions, but may also provide new ideas for treating diseases that affect decision-making abilities such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In the future, scientists plan to further explore the connections between different types of neurons and their specific roles on the decision-making stage. (New Society)