This week, Marcus Grüschow from the University of Zürich is visiting us and will give a talk about effects of arousal on decision making and stress resilience. Marcus is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Christian Ruff at UZH’s Department of Economics. Here are title and abstract of his talk on Thursday at the SWE colloquium:

Arousal-state influences on human decision-making and stress resilience

Arousal-related influences on brain states are ubiquitous in the mammalian brain and vary with neuromodulatory catecholamine levels. How such endogenous fluctuations in brain state impact on behaviour is only poorly understood. During the first part of the talk I will report on our investigations regarding the neural mechanisms by which spontaneous arousal-related fluctuations in brain state, indexed by pre-stimulus pupil dilation, impact on everyday perceptual and value-based choices in humans. Moreover, pathological changes in the arousal system can lead to severe behavioural alterations, as evident in multiple neuropsychiatric disorders including depression and anxiety. Such malfunctions of the arousal systems may be triggered by stress and traumatic events which are common features of life in modern societies. Even though stressful life events are on average associated with heightened vulnerability to psychopathology, the majority of individuals exposed to even severe stressors do not develop psychological problems. In the second part of the talk I will aim to elucidate the neurobiological basis of stress resilience, by identifying neural processes that predict who is resilient and who succumbs to stress, thereby offering possible neural pathways promoting stress resilience.