News
- Risky Business: Duke CNS Review published in Nature Neuroscience
- Duke CNS Paper published in Current Biology
- Duke CNS Paper published in Nature Neuroscience
- One look says it all - Women beat men at the task of being attuned to a familiar face.
- Duke CNS paper published in Neuron
- CNS Neurobiologists Featured in NYT Magazine
- CNS Announces Major Speakers Series
Risky Business: Duke CNS Review published in Nature Neuroscience
April 25, 2008 - Duke CNS Co-Directors Michael Platt and Scott Huettel contributed a review article to the April Nature Neuroscience special issue on Decision Making. They argue that many decisions involve uncertainty, or imperfect knowledge about how choices lead to outcomes. Colloquial notions of uncertainty, particularly when describing a decision as 'risky', often carry connotations of potential danger as well. Gambling on a long shot, whether a horse at the racetrack or a foreign oil company in a hedge fund, can have negative consequences, but the impact of uncertainty on decision making extends beyond gambling. Indeed, uncertainty in some form pervades nearly all our choices in daily life. Stepping into traffic to hail a cab, braving an ice storm to be the first at work, or dating the boss's son or daughter also offer potentially great windfalls, at the expense of surety. We continually face trade-offs between options that promise safety and others that offer an uncertain potential for jackpot or bust. When mechanisms for dealing with uncertain outcomes fail, as in mental disorders such as problem gambling or addiction, the results can be disastrous. Thus, understanding decision making—indeed, understanding behavior itself—requires knowing how the brain responds to and uses information about uncertainty. More »
Duke CNS Paper published in Current Biology
April 25, 2008 - Duke Neuroeconomists Jeffrey Klein and Michael Platt published the long-awaited follow up paper to the 2005 report by Deaner, Khera, and Platt on valuation of social images by rhesus macaques. In the March issue of Current Biology, Klein (along with Rob Deaner) and Platt demonstrate that neurons in primate parietal cortex encode the economic value of social images. These data implicate this brain area in the adaptive control of attention in social settings. More »
Duke CNS Paper published in Nature Neuroscience
January 21, 2007 - "Altruism is associated with an increased neural response to agency" - by CNS researchers Dharol Tankersley, Jill Stowe, and Scott Huettel - is published in the February 2007 issue of Nature Neuroscience More »
One look says it all - Women beat men at the task of being attuned to a familiar face.
November 29, 2006 - Women are more attuned to the subtle non-verbal communication made by the direction of a colleague's gaze, according to new research from the lab of Duke neurobiologist Michael Platt. Almost like a reflex, people will follow a person's gaze and look towards what the other person is looking at. This phenomenon, known as 'gaze cuing', is deeply entrenched in human behaviour. "We do it without effort, very quickly, and that's quite amazing," says Platt. "We do it from the first hours of being born." More »
Duke CNS paper published in Neuron
March 1, 2006 - A new manuscript from Duke CNS researchers, "Neural signatures of economic preferences for risk and ambiguity" has been published in the journal Neuron. This research demonstrates that activation of distinct regions of frontal and parietal cortex covaries with subjects' preferences for (or aversions to) ambiguity and risk, respectively. More »
CNS Neurobiologists Featured in NYT Magazine
January 1, 2006 - The New York Times Magazine has featured the work of Duke neurobiologists in the Platt Lab for its year end review of "The Year in Ideas." Michael Platt and Robert Deaner's work on animal social cognition demonstrated for the first time that monkeys, like humans, value information according to its social content. More »
CNS Announces Major Speakers Series
December 1, 2005 - The Duke Center for Neuroeconomic Studies (CNS) announces its 2005-2006 Major Speakers series: Dr. Colin Camerer (Cal. Tech., 12/8/05), Dr. Daeyeol Lee (Rochester, 2/24/06), and Dr. Read Montague (Baylor College of Medicine, 4/7/05). All talks are open to the academic community and are intended for a broad audience.