Behavioral Finance

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Behavioral Finance Roundtable Neuroeconomics
Union League Philadelphia, PA March 21, 2013
Barry D. Waterhouse, PhD
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Neuroeconomics

• Neural mechanisms underlying
• decision-making
• Business
• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Social science

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Movement
Sensation
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Executive Functions Problem solving Decision
making Working memory Sensory perception Salience
Attention Multi-tasking Comprehension Sequencing
Creativity
Cognition
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Neuroeconomics

• Factors affecting decision-making
• Prior experience - knowledge
• Current behavioral state affect, arousal
• Innate capacity for risk taking
• Reward valuation
• Uncertainty duress, anxiety
• Reward history recent vs extended
• Stress
• Gender - Age - Genetics - Drugs

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Behavior
Single Neuron Activity and Cognition
Cognitive Enhancing Drugs
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VTA Unit Discharge Schultz et al, 1997
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Recent Headlines
One in five Nature readers -- mostly scientists
say they up their mental performance with
drugs such as Ritalin, ,
April 28, 2008
Living the off-label life, December 27,
2008
New York Times
Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing
drugs by the healthy, December 7, 2008 Greely
et al.
Nature
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Thursday November 8, 2007The Guardian
Ways to make you think better Students and
exhausted workers have been abusing stimulants
for decades. But these days, if you're keen to
feel sharper, and work for longer, the drugs
available are more effective than they once were
- and less likely to make you feel awful
afterwards. No wonder then that the abuse of
pills such as Ritalin and modafinil is becoming a
major problem. Katharine Hibbert reports on the
rise of cognitive-enhancing drugs
Ritalin.drug of choice in college dorms for
exam week .. kiddie coke
Vitamin R