Purpose

Our research seeks to elucidate the neural underpinnings of emotion. Our progress ultimately relies upon a symbiosis of psychological theory and neuroscience methods.

Goals

  • Characterizing the neuroanatomical and chemical trajectory of affective circuits.
  • Determining whether therapy can normalize deranged affective circuits.
  • Understanding how affective circuits influence (economic) decision-making.
  • Innovating new methods for tracking affect dynamics.

    News

    06/03/09: Congratulations to Drs. Jeff Cooper and Hal Ersner-Hershfield: The first Spanlab Ph.D.s!

    03/09/09: Mr. Spanlab goes to Washington to support NSF funded research.

    12/27/08: Spanlab's review on anticipatory affect makes the cover of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

    10/27/08: Knutson summarizes spanlab's work on financial decision making at the Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark Conference

    06/12/08: The Economist takes note of spanlab's work on neural antecedents of the endowment effect.

    04/02/08: KGO radio inquires about spanlab's finding that nucleus accumbens activation mediates the influence of erotic stimuli on financial risk taking.