20 Last-Minute Decisions That Changed History For Better Or For Worse

Have you ever wondered what leads us to make certain decisions? Well, this article should’ve definitely sparked this thought in your mind. Just last year, Harvard scientists gained new insights into how neurons (nerve cells) in the brain communicate during decisions and how connections between neurons may help to reinforce our choices. 

The neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School who studied mice were the first to combine structural, functional, and behavioral analyses to explore how neuron-to-neuron connections support decision-making.

“How the brain is organized to help make decisions is a big, fundamental question, and the neural circuitry — how neurons are connected to one another — in brain areas that are important for decision-making isn’t well understood,” said Wei-Chung Allen Lee, associate professor of neurobiology and co-senior author of the study.

To finally get a better understanding of how the brain makes decisions, the researchers tasked mice with choosing which way to go in a maze to find a reward. Afterward, they found that the mouse’s choice to go right or left activated sequential groups of neurons and suppressed activity of neurons linked to the opposite decision.

“As the animal is expressing one choice, the wiring of the neuronal circuit may help stabilize that choice by suppressing other choices,” Lee said. “This could be a mechanism that helps an animal maintain a decision and prevents ‘changes of mind.’”

Of course, these findings have to be confirmed with humans. But since mice are genetically very similar to humans, the same might apply to people. Interestingly enough, mice have become popular research subjects for the same reason, in addition to being easy to keep, having a short generation time, and being able to be produced in large numbers.

Getting back to the topic of decision-making, researchers also claim that many of our choices are made unconsciously. Since we make hundreds of decisions every day, we don’t think carefully through each one of them and often rely on our subconscious and emotions.

While looking at brain activity, researchers could predict what choices people would make 7-10 seconds before they were even aware of it themselves. This means that even when we think we’re making a conscious, logical decision, chances are that we aren’t aware that it was unconscious. 

That’s probably what also happened with the people on this list who made the last-minute decisions that changed the course of history. In addition, they were also probably influenced by their gut feeling and emotions, since we can’t make choices without feelings, thanks to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (or ‘vmPFC’) in our brain.

It’s a part of the front of the brain, which is responsible for regulating anxiety and fear, and allows us to make decisions. So when a person can’t make up their mind about something, they’re better persuaded by appealing to their emotions than logical arguments.

Most of our decision-making is unconscious or emotional, but that doesn’t mean that it’s poor or irrational. Since we receive an overwhelming amount of data every day, our unconscious has evolved to process most of it and to make decisions that, most of the time, are in our best interests. This could be described as “trusting your gut,” and it often tends to work, just like it did for the people in this list.