Neuroeconomics: the consilience of brain and decision

Abstract

Economics, psychology, and neuroscience are converging today into a single, unified discipline with the ultimate aim of providing a single, general theory of human behavior. This is the emerging field of neuroeconomics in which consilience, the accordance of two or more inductions drawn from different groups of phenomena, seems to be operating. Economists and psychologists are providing rich conceptual tools for understanding and modeling behavior, while neurobiologists provide tools for the study of mechanism. The goal of this discipline is thus to understand the processes that connect sensation and action by revealing the neurobiological mechanisms by which decisions are made. This review describes recent developments in neuroeconomics from both behavioral and biological perspectives.