Description

The biological revolution of the last 40 years has now positioned modern science to tackle one of the deepest and most vexing problems of the modern era - the biological basis of human choice. A large number of maladies that afflict the world today remain obscure due to an almost complete ignorance of the biological architecture of human decision-making. These maladies range from economic meltdowns, driven in large measure by widespread breakdowns in trust between individuals and institutions freezing commerce worldwide, to individual diseases in humans where the primary symptoms are dramatic and often involving pathological changes in decision-making.;;In their WEP lectures, Professors Chew and Coricelli will explore the neurobiological underpinnings of the human capacity to choose. The topics they will discuss include theoretical models of decision making and their experimental tests in incentivized laboratory settings augmented by the tools of molecular genetics, brain imaging, endocrinology and pharmacology.;;The goal of these investigations is to seek a deeper understanding of individual decision making under risk and involving time as well as social decision making involving other regarding behavior, such as altruism, fairness, and trust, and strategic thinking. Particular emphasis will be placed on how the completion of the human genome project has generated molecular genetic tools that can be leveraged to identify neuroanatomical and neurochemical pathways that shape the biology of choice.