Using Economic Games to Investigate the Neural Substrates of Cognitive Processes

Masao Nagatsuka¹, Hideo Shinagawa^1, , Yoshiyaka Okano², Yuri Kitamura³ and Tatsuyoshi Saijo²

¹Research Center for Behavioral Economics, The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

²Department of Management, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan

³Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Cite this paper

Masao Nagatsuka, Hideo Shinagawa, Yoshiyaka Okano, Yuri Kitamura and Tatsuyoshi Saijo. Using Economic Games to Investigate the Neural Substrates of Cognitive Processes. American Journal of Clinical Medicine Research. 2013; 1(4):71-74. doi: 10.12691/AJCMR-1-4-6

Abstract

Our study has shown that changes can be induced in human decision-making and emotions by using the PD and PDAS games. This suggests that economic games may provide a way to study cognitive functions in detail by analyzing the structure of the economic games using game theory. In addition, the combined use of economic games and neuroimaging techniques such as fNIRS, fMRI, and MEG may capture and quantify neural the substrates of various cognitive processes in a clinical setting. They might be effective in extracting human emotional ups and downs in the process of the decision-making. Further studies of economic games for patients with mental illness or brain damage are needed to explore this approach further.

Keywords

economic games, prisoners’ dilemma, fNIRS

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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