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Now the mysteries of the brain.

In the third part of this series about the brain, Professor Barry Smith explores the brain

and decision making.

Aristotle thought that humans were rational animals,

who choose what to do and capable of weighing up different factors to come to the right decision.

That's how we like to think of ourselves, but is that really what's going on?

In this BBC programme, mysteries of the brain, I'll be exploring what happens in the brain when you choose what to do.

And now the Egyptian striker has the chance to score on his debut against Liverpool.

The Egyptian striker Mido takes a penalty against Liverpool.

Did he go left or right, high or low?

Here comes Mido, left or corner, and Mido scores on his debut.

A good decision by Mido, but exactly when did he decide to go left and did he freely choose that option?

The idea that he did has been questioned by modern neuroscience.

It seems certainly as though consciousness lies at the heart of Andre Action,

but in fact, neuroscientific data suggests that that's not correct.

Patrick Haggard is from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London.

He describes a famous experiment, designed to show that the brain has already begun preparing for movement

before we consciously decide to move.

The classic experiment here is the work of Benjamin Libet, which was done back in the late 70s and early 1980s,

...