Dharol Tankersley

Office Location:	163 Bell Building
Office Phone:	919-681-9935
Email Address:

Areas:
Altruism
Neural Substrates of Reward Processing
Philosophy of Science/Neuroscience

Research Interests:

My work examines the neural circuitry involved in the processing of social rewards and the processes of decision making within social contexts. Specifically, my work has focused on the neural substrates of altruism. My recent studies have used a combination of self-report behavioral measures and fMRI to identify brain regions that differentiate individuals based on their altruistic tendencies. These studies have demonstrated a relationship between brain areas involved in social perception (the right posterior superior temporal cortex) and level of self-reported altruism. In the future I plan to investigate the range of social stimuli that produce activation in dopaminergic reward areas, and the degree to which individuals differ in their reward-responsivity to social stimuli.