Results could improve decision-making in risk situations
Research from the University of Coimbra (UC), published today, has analysed the brain response of firefighters to rescue actions in fires. Scientists believe the results could be important for improving decisions in risk situations.
The work, led by researcher Isabel Duarte and Miguel Castelo-Branco, scientific coordinator of the Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research Centre of the Institute of Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (CIBIT/ICNAS), involved 47 firefighters from various brigades in the district of Coimbra playing virtual ‘rescue games’.
The research team concluded that the visualisation of images involving decisions on how to rescue people in fires could “be of great importance for improving and training decision-making in risk situations”, the UC said in a statement sent to Lusa news agency.
“By analysing how the brain resolves dilemmas involving life-saving decisions, it was possible to study the role of experience and the use of coping strategies by firefighters,” explained neuroscientist Miguel Castelo-Branco.
The professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) said that the research made it possible to realise that decision-making dilemmas led to the activation of neural networks involved in the management of emotional reward and other networks related to ethical and professional dilemmas.
The scientific team, which also included the Centre for the Prevention and Treatment of Psychological Trauma of the Integrated Psychiatry Responsibility Centre of the Coimbra Local Health Unit, was able to verify that “neural activity related to the decision to rescue people decreased in certain brain regions the greater the ability to use coping strategies, which suggests compensatory learning acquired with practice,” said Castelo-Branco.
Firefighters taking part in the study “visualised realistic scenarios involving lives at risk, both for themselves and potential victims, having to make a rescue decision,” he explained.
The exercise simulated firefighting with life-threatening situations, such as houses on fire with people inside them – a situation in which the firefighters’ previous training and specialisation play an important role. Participants’ brains were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
“We also found that brain activity in regions related to memory and decision-making – such as the hippocampus and insula – increased proportionally as risk increased,” said Castelo-Branco.
“It was possible to identify brain areas whose activity was directly related to calculating the probability of adverse events, such as a house going up in flames or the loss of life,” he added.
At the same time, people who do not work as firefighters, when subjected to the same decision-making tasks, showed different brain results, leading scientists to conclude that the way the brain controls decision-making depends on experience and training.
LUSA
