Description du sujet de thèse

Many social phenomena emerge from interactions between individuals connected in networks. Such phenomena include collective decision making, opinion formation, the propagation of 'fake news', the polarization of opinion groups, the echo chamber effect, and the dynamics of information diffusion in networks. This interdisciplinary thesis project lies at the border between social neuroscience, behavioral economics and social network modeling. Its main goals are:
- Conducting behavioral experiments in networks where each participant has access to private information that can be acquired personally and/or information obtained by observing others within the network ;
- Computational modeling based on a multi-agent system allowing to link the level of individual choice to the emergent behavior at the level of the social network studied in the previous step;
- Functional MRI study of the computations performed by brain systems to be identified during network interactions.
This thesis project will allow the behavioral study, the modeling of the observed behavior in networks, and the identification of the brain mechanisms engaged in social communication, as well as on the influence of a minority of a part of the members of the network to spread false information and the behavior of the majority of the network to protect itself against misinformation.

Contexte de travail

Our laboratory is hosted in the Institute of Cognitive Sciences Marc Jeannerod (CNRS) in Lyon, France. It investigates the neural mechanisms underlying decision making, motivation and reward processing in humans, using concepts from cognitive neuroscience, psychology and behavioral economics. We use experimental tools such as model-based functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, intracranial electrophysiological recordings and pharmacological manipulations to understand the computational processes involved when making a choice. Our goals are to understand the functional organization of the prefrontal cortex in humans, the various functions that the reward dopaminergic system exerts on cognition and motivation and the neural mechanisms underlying dysfunctions of these two systems in patients with neurological or psychiatric illnesses (Parkinson's disease, patients with focal prefrontal cortex lesions, schizophrenia and pathological gambling). In parallel, we are also studying how individual variations in hormones and genes influence reward processing and decision-making.

Contraintes et risques

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