NEUMET-CO: A NEUroimaging augmented METa-COgnition model to predict the decision-making capabilities of warfighters

We propose to develop a neuroimaging-based solution to assess the decision-making capabilities of warfighters in cognition and meta-cognition scenarios. These models consider various factors such as rational thinking, volition, personality traits, risk-taking ability, etc. which to a large extend are influenced by the soldier"s social-cultural environment. Current models are solely based on behavior assessment tasks and thereby, overlook the neural mechanisms that can compensate for any cognitive shortcomings by performing higher-order interactions amongst various neural substrates. This results in misclassification of soldiers who might need training in terms of their cognitive ability to make rapid decisions without exhausting these higher-order interactions. As phase I deliverables, we propose i) to develop tools to analyze function magnetic resonance (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) signals for decision-making tasks, ii) integration of these modalities to extract features of interest that provide a direct/indirect measure of an individual"s decision-making ability and iii) refine existing cognitive architectures and/or develop models based on our findings. In summary, these models can be used to track the progress of warfighters in terms of their decision-making ability after training. Our solution can be extended to other agent models (i.e., different demography, society, etc.) and is not limited to only warfighters.