Center for Human Neuroscience Research
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Read Montague, Ph.D. , homeThe Virginia Tech Carilion Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor and Director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research
About the Center for Human Neuroscience Research
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute scientists in this Center work with volunteer research participants from Roanoke, Blacksburg, and the surrounding communities to understand decision-making, behavior, and brain function and disorders in humans. Researchers in this Center have pioneered new approaches to human neuroimaging, including hyperscanning and magnetoencephalography using optically pumped magnetometry, as well as techniques to record and detect real-time fluctuations in neurochemicals while participants complete decision-making tasks. Led by Read Montague, Ph.D., the Center includes the Computational Psychiatry Unit, Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, and the Human Magnetometry Laboratory.
Connecting neuroscience to economics
Psychology and economics have successfully demonstrated that human behavior is not endlessly variable, but can be captured and quantified by testable laws. Modern neuroscience techniques can identify and link individual differences in decision-making behavior to differences in brain anatomy, brain responses, genetics, and so on. In particular, modern neuroimaging techniques provide the means by which human brain responses can be monitored while subjects are engaged in economic-based behavioral tasks. Our lab has been employing this methodology to study well-quantified group behavioral scenarios in which monetary outcomes vary depending on how people cooperate, compete, or punish others.
The goal of this work is centered on the idea of valuation, especially neural valuation. Valuation is a central concept in economics. In this domain, the value of goods must be put on a common scale in order to compare, contrast, and prioritize their value. In this context, the idea of a currency provides just such a common valuation scale.
Neural valuation and its connection to decision-making
Nervous systems are also equipped with rapid, online valuation systems. These valuation systems equip a mobile creature with a capacity to rank (prioritize) stimuli and internal states. Without valuation systems, a creature would be unable to assess the behavioral value of attending to some stimulus or carrying out some behavior. Rapid valuation is also intimately connected to decision-making mechanisms embedded in nervous systems. Creatures tend to make decisions that lead to more valuable outcomes. From this point of view, it is easy to see that pathologies of valuation will underlie a large number of behavioral abnormalities. These include drug addiction, various forms of mental illness, and even milder developmental behavioral disorders. For example, drug addicts have a serious problem with decision-making algorithms. Otherwise, why would an addict decide to sacrifice biological sustenance in order to put alcohol in their blood or cocaine in their nose? Some of the theoretical frameworks in economics are very useful in uncovering valuation and decision-making mechanisms in the human brain. This is the sense in which Neuroeconomics addresses important, but relatively untested issues related to neural function. Better understanding in this area has broad implications in many fields.
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Chiu Lab , homeThe Chiu Laboratory examines the neuroscience of human motivation and social decision-making.
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King-Casas Lab , homeThe King-Casas Lab addresses two broad areas of inquiry: (1) neural underpinnings of valuation and learning in social settings, and (2) how social and economic preferences influence valuation and learning.
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LaConte Lab , homeResearch in the LaConte lab is devoted to advanced neuroimaging acquisition and data analysis approaches, aimed at basic scientific discovery as well as understanding and rehabilitating neurological and psychiatric diseases.
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Montague Lab , homeThe Montague Lab's work focuses on computational neuroscience – the connection between physical mechanisms present in real neural tissue and the computational functions that these mechanisms embody.
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Article ItemFralin Biomedical Research Institute scientists reveal neural basis of confirmation bias , article
An international research team comprising neuroscientists at Virginia Tech and the University of London revealed brain mechanisms and functional regions that underlie confirmation bias — a phenomenon where people strongly favor information that reinforces their existing opinions over contradictory ones.
Date: Dec 17, 2019 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech graduate students selected to join competitive Society for Neuroscience program , article
Amnah Eltahir and Alyssa Brunal-Brown, Virginia Tech graduate students at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, were accepted into the Society for Neuroscience’s fellowship and associate programs, respectively.
Date: Jun 11, 2019 -
Article ItemJudges, neuroscientists consider how science and criminal justice converge at Roanoke neurolaw conference , article
Neuroscientists and addiction experts at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC believe that emerging neuroscientific discoveries could complement criminal justice.
Date: May 02, 2019 -
Article ItemVTCRI researchers find positive effects of early education intervention four decades later , article
New research published in Nature Communications, led by Read Montague, of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, suggests that participants who received educational interventions in early childhood show positive effects on social decision-making more than four decades later.
Date: Nov 20, 2018 -
Article ItemVTCRI researcher to deliver internationally renowned Dorcas Cummings Memorial Lecture , article
Read Montague will become the 41st person to present the annual Dorcas Cummings Memorial Lecture on June 2 at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Symposium on Quantitative Biology, Brains, and Behavior: Order and Disorder in the Nervous System.
Date: May 30, 2018 -
Article ItemKeep calm and carry on: VTCRI scientists make first serotonin measurements in humans , article
Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have begun to unravel how serotonin acts, based on data collected in a first-of-its-kind experiment that utilized electrochemical probes implanted into the brain of awake human beings.
Date: May 01, 2018 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute partners with INSIGHTEC to research focused ultrasound technology , article
Through this collaboration, the institute became the company’s first nonclinical research site.
Date: Jan 29, 2018 -
Article ItemScientists find heightened attention to surprise in veterans with PTSD , article
A new study found that people with PTSD have an increased learning response to surprising events compared to people without PTSD.
Date: Jan 10, 2018 -
Article ItemResearchers find that brain imagery shows difference between knowing or reckless behavior in criminal acts , article
Scientists and lawyers speak different languages, but there is common ground. Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists working in a multi-institutional team with legal authorities have discovered that brain imaging can determine whether someone is acting in a state of knowledge about a crime.
Date: Mar 13, 2017 -
Article ItemNIH’s alcohol addiction research programs leader will speak at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute , article
George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, will discuss the neurocircuitry of alcohol addiction at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.
Date: Jan 17, 2017 -
Article ItemUVA, Virginia Tech Carilion partner to fund cross-university neuroscience research , article
The University of Virginia-Virginia Tech Carilion Neuroscience Research Collaboration have announced more than a half million dollars in grant funding will be awarded to nine research teams to tackle pressing problems in brain development and function in health and disease.
Date: Dec 11, 2016 -
Article ItemBeliefs about nicotine influence cigarette craving , article
In a study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers found that participants failed to satisfy their craving by simply smoking a nicotine cigarette. The participants had to actually believe that the cigarette contained nicotine.
Date: Sep 13, 2016 -
Article ItemNew journal launched for up-and-coming field of computational psychiatry , article
Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute are teaming up with neuroscientists around the world.
Date: Jun 22, 2016 -
Article ItemEndowed professorships named for Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scholars , article
Warren Bickel is the first Virginia Tech Carilion Behavioral Science Research Professor, and P. Read Montague is the first Virginia Tech Carilion Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor.
Date: Mar 24, 2016 -
Article ItemBrain scanning reveals that birds of a feather really do flock together , article
In a study using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists found that our inherent risk-taking preferences affect how we view and act on information from other people.
Date: May 19, 2015 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists discover beliefs can be just as powerful as nicotine , article
Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have discovered that beliefs can regulate the effects of nicotine on the human brain.
Date: Feb 26, 2015 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists developing speedy test for autism spectrum disorder , article
Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have designed a two-minute brain-imaging test that may be able to aid in the diagnosis of children with autism spectrum disorder
Date: Jan 15, 2015 -
Article ItemLiberal or conservative? Brain responses to disgusting images help reveal political leanings , article
On the verge of Election Day, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists find that biology influences political ideology.
Date: Oct 31, 2014 -
Article ItemScientists find possible neurobiological basis for tradeoff between honesty, self-interest , article
A team of scientists from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the University of California at Berkeley used economic games to study how the brain makes choices about honesty.
Date: Sep 23, 2014 -
Article ItemHigh earners in a stock market game found to have brain patterns that can predict bubbles and crashes , article
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? It may be that, when it comes to stock market success, your brain is heeding the wrong neural signals.
Date: Jul 08, 2014 -
Article ItemRisky business: Scientists seek to identify predictors of risky behaviors among teenagers , article
What makes the adolescent brain so susceptible to taking risks? Virginia Tech scientists are recruiting as many as 150 teenagers to help them find out.
Date: May 22, 2014 -
Article ItemScientists discover how Alzheimer's drugs sharpen the brain's performance , article
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have discovered how the leading Alzheimer’s pharmaceuticals might sharpen the brain’s performance.
Date: May 13, 2013 -
Article ItemThe subtle hallmarks of psychiatric illness can reveal themselves even remotely , article
Most people are so attuned to the nuances of social interaction that they can detect clues to mental illness while playing a strategy game with someone they have never met.
Date: Apr 09, 2013 -
Article ItemKirk and Spock joined at the hip: The feeling of computing , article
Kirk and Spock may not need a Vulcan mind meld to share cognition: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have found that our cold reasoning and hot feelings may be more intimately connected than previously thought.
Date: Mar 12, 2013 -
Article ItemRead Montague introduced an idea worth spreading at TEDGlobal 2012 , article
Read Montague introduced an idea worth spreading at TEDGlobal 2012: that state-of-the-art computational approaches can enhance the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.
Date: Jul 05, 2012 -
Article ItemGroup settings can diminish expressions of intelligence, especially among women , article
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. Women were disproportionately affected.
Date: Jan 25, 2012 -
Article ItemBrain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure , article
Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment.
Date: Nov 23, 2011 -
Article ItemResearchers track brain's dopamine release, its effect on decision-making , article
Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists and their colleagues have developed a biocompatible microsensor that can detect dopamine release in the human brain, and have used it to track decision making.
Date: Nov 01, 2011 -
Article ItemNeuroscientists produce guide for using ultrasound to treat brain disorders in clinical emergencies , article
The discovery that low-intensity, pulsed ultrasound can be used to noninvasively stimulate intact brain circuits holds promise for engineering rapid-response medical devices.
Date: Sep 14, 2011 -
Article ItemExpertise provides buffer against bias in making judgments , article
Scientists with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have demonstrated that monetary favors can influence people's assessments of art works, but not if the viewer is an art expert.
Date: Jun 07, 2011 -
Article ItemFunctional MRI shows how mindfulness meditation changes decision-making process , article
Research shows that Buddhist meditators use different areas of the brain than other people when confronted with unfair choices, enabling them to make decisions rationally rather than emotionally.
Date: Apr 21, 2011 -
Article ItemVirginia Tech Carilion Research Institute faculty member receives National Institute of Mental Health award , article
Pearl Chiu, faculty member with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, has receive a $1.1 million research award from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Date: Feb 03, 2011 -
Article ItemPowerful scanners for brain research to be delivered at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute in Roanoke , article
A magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI) being delivered on Nov. 17 to the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute
Date: Nov 11, 2010 -
Article ItemLeading neuroscientist to lead human brain imaging research program at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute , article
Leading brain researcher P. Read Montague will join the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute as a senior professor and will lead programs in human neuroimaging and the new field of computational psychiatry.
Date: Sep 20, 2010
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Redirect ItemNeuroscience for Teenagers: Interview with Read Montague, Ph.D. , redirect Date: May 15, 2020
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Virtual Seminar: Multi-channel MEG Measurements with a Wearable OPM SystemApril 23, 2021, 11 a.m. | Elena Boto, Ph.D. | Pioneers in Biomedical Research Seminar Series