Decision Fatigue Is a Prefrontal Pricing Error: How Your Brain Secretly Inflates the Cost of Thinking

Decision Fatigue Is a Prefrontal Pricing Error: How Your Brain Secretly Inflates the Cost of Thinking Decision fatigue brain science has moved past the willpower-tank model. Recent neuroscience shows the brain inflates the perceived cost of thinking through a pricing error — the right anterior insula amplifies effort signals while the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fails to recalibrate. The result: you start avoiding decisions at exactly the wrong moment. ...

May 4, 2026 · 17 min · 3601 words · Dr. Sydney Ceruto