Paul Glimcher, PhD

IISDM Director
Professor of Neural Science, Economics and Psychology

My post-doctoral training was in oculomotor physiology. Working with Prof. David Sparks researching the brainstem and mesencephalic nuclei that control eye rotations, I uncovered evidence that structures participating in the execution of saccadic eye movements might be involved in planning those movements as well. Evidence of this type has been accumulating throughout the neuraxis, but few signals have been associated with any one of the covert processes postulated to intervene between sensation and action. As a result, over the past decade my laboratory has focused on the identification and characterization of signals that intervene between the neural processes that engage in sensory encoding and the neural processes that engage in movement generation. These are the signals which must, in principle, underlie decision-making. My laboratory studies these processes using a variety of tools that are drawn from the fields of neuroscience, economics and psychology, and our methodologies range from single neuron electrophysiology to fMRI to game theory. In a similar way, the members of my laboratory include scientists with primary training in neurobiology, economics, and psychology.

Lab Website: http://decisionsrus.com/
IISDM Website: http://www.neuroeconomics.nyu.edu/