Neuroeconomics Group

Our international team investigates the brain mechanisms of decision making, social influence and persuasive communication. We study neural mechanism of valuation, risk taking, cognitive dissonance and social aspects of decision making. Our group particularly focuses on neurobiological mechanisms of social influence. People are exposed to hundreds of persuasive messages per day in one form or another: from TV commercials to scientific publications. Social influence on our decisions has been a focus of extensive psychological research but has been nearly ignored by neuroscience. Understanding the neuronal mechanisms of effective social influence will help to uncover mechanisms of decision making in various social contexts. We investigate a broad range of fundamental and applied problems in decision making and social influence, including neuroscience of persuasion, cognitive dissonance, neuronal plasticity caused by economic outcomes, neurobiology of trust and risk taking, neuroscience of temporal discounting and neuro-law in collaboration with Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives Ecole Normale Supérieure, Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University and Moscow MEG Centre.