Individuals with impairments in certain portions of the brain are more prone to compulsive and addictive behavior.

A new research has pinpointed the exact locations in the brain - the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex - and how these affect the choices of a person. According to the research, this explains why some people choose drugs, alcohol, gambling despite its obvious risks.

Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that damage to these areas of the brain impaired the choices of persons. Accordingly, while these individuals may appear perfectly normal, they routinely make decisions that are bring them problems.

The good news is these discoveries could pave the way for more targeted treatments for everything from drug and alcohol abuse to obsessive-compulsive disorders.

'The better we understand our decision-making brain circuitry, the better we can target treatment, whether it's pharmaceutical, behavioral or deep brain stimulation," said Jonathan Wallis, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and the principal investigator of the study published in the Oct. 30 online issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The results show that the orbitofrontal cortex regulates neural activity, depending on the value or "stakes" of a decision. This part of the brain enables you to switch easily between making important decisions. However, the findings suggest that in the case of addicts and people with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, the neural activity does not change based on the gravity of the decision, presenting trouble when these individuals try to get their brains in gear to make sound choices.

According to Wallis, when the anterior cingulate cortex part of the brain functions normally, we learn quickly whether a decision we made matched our expectations. But in people with a malfunctioning anterior cingulate cortex, these signals are missing, and so they continue to make poor choices.

"This is the first study to pin down the calculations made by these two specific parts of the brain that underlie healthy decision-making," Wallis said.

The study, co-authored by Steven Kennerley, now at the University of London, and Timothy Behrens, at the University of Oxford in England, was conducted at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.