Mentalizing and social conformity: Pharmacological manipulations and underlying mechanisms. (360G-Wellcome-097267_Z_11_Z)

The proposed research project focuses on the neurobiology of social behaviour.Neuroimaging experiments will be combined with pharmacological manipulations to better understand the mechanisms and computations underlying social information processing. We recently developed a paradigm to modulate participant's preferences in an intertemporal choice task (Garvert et al., in preparation). This paradigm is apotentially powerful tool for conceptualizing and quantifying the implicit effects mentalizing exerts on decision making. l aim to use this task to studythe biological mechanisms underlying behaviour of individuals placed in socialsituations by investigating the brain regions that support task performance and the effect played by neuromodulators known to be involved in social behaviour (e.g. oxytocin). Furthermore, it will be investigated whether a similar social conformity effect can be observed in other areas of decision making. Elucidating these mechanisms is highly relevant for understanding psychiatric disorders associated with social dysfunction, such as autism. In