Decision Neuroscience Symposium in Melbourne held in honor of institute researcher Read Montague
October 11, 2011
Read Montague, the director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, delivered the keynote lecture at the international Decision Neuroscience Symposium on Tuesday.
The symposium was held in Montague's honor Tuesday at The Brain, Mind and Markets Laboratory at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
In his lecture, “The interactive stance: human choice with others, markets, and politics,” Montague highlighted efforts to probe brain responses underlying human perception and decision-making during active social interactions. He discussed approaches that may give new insight into mental disorders and lead to new research directions.
Montague’s work centers broadly on the neurobiology of human social cognition, decision-making, and willful choice. He particularly focuses on computational neuroscience – the connection between the physical mechanisms in real neural tissue and the computational functions they embody.
The symposium opened with remarks from Peter Bossaerts, a professor of Experimental Finance and Decision Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, and an Honorary Professorial Fellow with the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the largest brain research group in the Southern Hemisphere. The Center of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function of the Australian Research Council also supported the symposium.