The Decision Neuroscience Laboratory investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms of reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. We combine human behavioral, functional neuroimaging (fMRI), real-time fMRI, and neuropsychological patient data in an effort to develop rigorous and predictive models of brain function that mechanistically link neural systems to thought and behavior. An important motivation for our work is the development of a theoretically sound foundation for research on the relationship between disturbances of brain function and their manifestation as thought disorders in mental illness.

Our current research examines the following major themes:

• Neural architecture of social reasoning in the prefrontal cortex
• Cognitive and neural mechanisms of causal reasoning
• Neural bases of moral, ethical, and political decision-making
• Cognitive and neural foundations of probability judgment
• Functional organization of working memory in the prefrontal cortex