In the new study led by Princeton University, published in the journal Nature, researchers used AI to trace the trajectory of decision making in the frontal cortex of rats, determining the instant when the brain “committed” to a choice and began tuning out new information.

Understanding this commitment process could improve how we study attention, impulsivity and decision-making in both healthy brains and in disorders like ADHD or schizophrenia.

“We’ve discovered a biomarker of the precise moment when a decision is finalized, and the deliberation ends,” said co-first author Thomas Luo, an incoming assistant professor at the University of Utah who completed the research as a postdoctoral scholar at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.