Neuroscience of social behavior
What brain mechanisms enable us to interact with others? Human brains evolved to deal with the increasing demands of social interactions. Social behaviors are reward-driven, whether their motivating factors are physical rewards, such as food and sex, or more abstract rewards, such as vicarious experience and interpersonal reputation. Investigating how the brain computes social preferences and mediates prosocial and antisocial decisions can provide an ecologically valid and efficient means of understanding the brain. In particular, studying how the brain computes social information during dynamic and contingent interactions will likely reveal novel insights into the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors. Elucidating these neural mechanisms will ultimately help treat social deficits in numerous psychiatric disorders. In addressing these issues, Steve Chang's laboratory investigates how neurons in the prefrontal-amygdala circuits signal social decisions and mediate social gaze dynamics. They apply electrophysiological and neuropharmacological approaches during real-life social interactions as well as functional neuroimaging techniques.
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Biography
Chang received his Bachelor's degree in 2003 and his Doctoral degree in 2009 in Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his postdoctoral training at Duke University. Chang started his lab in 2014 at Yale in the Department of Psychology. He also serves as the co-Director of Graduate Studies of the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (INP) and the co-Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Neuroscience major (NSCI). His partner, Sarah, worked in the past at Yale as the Director of Student Accessibility Services, and they share a child, August. They also love their Old English Sheepdogs, Coco and Apollo.
