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Category: Project

Description: We plan to empirically test the relationship between anatomical differences in specific brain regions and behavioral outcomes related to risky behaviour in the field. Specifically, we want to identify neuro-anatomical differences (i.e. cortical thickness, gray and white matter volume) that are robustly associated to risky behaviour (RB) across several domains. Attitudes toward risk substantially differ across individuals. Given their importance in decisions related to health and financial outcomes, risk attitudes have received much attention in economics and related fields in the social sciences. Thus, we believe that the results will be informative for a broader audience, and specifically to scientists in the realms of biology, psychology, neuroscience, social science and business. In this study, we plan to address the following research questions: (1) Are specific brain areas more strongly linked to risky behaviour (RB) than expected by chance? (2) Is it possible to predict RB from anatomical brain structure? (3) Do brain images add predictive accuracy for RB to that obtained from socio-demographic and other variables?