News

02.06.2025

New Neuroimaging PhD Position

New Neuroimaging PhD Position (4 years) at the SCAN-Unit in the Cluster of Excellence “Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease”

21.05.2025

Featured in ECHO: New Nature Communications Paper by the SCAN Unit and Psychologist Mat White

The latest ECHO newsletter features a new Nature Communications study on how nature helps us cope with pain.

12.05.2025

New paper on individual and nation-level predictors of climate change beliefs and behaviors

Which are the most important predictors of climate-friendly beliefs and behaviors?

02.04.2025

Forschung in Wien

Für die Forschung sind die Zeiten in vielen Ländern schwieriger und finsterer geworden. Ich lebe und forsche gerne in Wien!

28.03.2025

We launched the new Heat & Cognition Manylabs!

We are looking for collaborators for an exciting new project investigating how extreme heat affects cognition and behavior.

14.03.2025

We warmly welcome Arianna Curioni to SCAN-Unit as a postdoctoral researcher

Arianna investigates how adults and children learn to collaborate and what drives human motivation for cooperation from both evolutionary and...

13.03.2025

New paper on how nature exposure relieves pain on both subjective and neural levels published in Nature Communications

Can nature genuinely relieve pain - even in the brain?

06.03.2025

Study on Comfort Consumption During COVID-19 Attracts Significant Media Attention

The findings of our study contradict the common belief that stress and negative emotions lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

05.03.2025

SCAN Unit congratulates Prof. Giorgia Silani!

We organized a surprise party for Giorgia Silani at our lab meeting this week.

26.02.2025

The SCAN-unit went ice scating ⛸️

Our lab organized a sporty social event in the center of Vienna.

21.02.2025

Project team get-together with VetMeduni

The team of the project "Human attitudes towards wolves and dogs" celebrated their first joint paper!

03.02.2025

Farewell for Alexandrina

By the end of January we also said goodbye to our colleague Alexandrina, who is leaving the SCAN-Unit after her time as a PostDoc in the EvoSocBrain...

31.01.2025

Farewell for Elisa

During this week's team meeting we said goodbye to our colleague Elisa Warmuth, who is leaving the SCAN-Unit after 4 great years together!

28.01.2025

New paper on the (mis)interpretation of statistical power published in Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

How can we assess findings from studies with low statistical power?

24.01.2025

Claus Lamm at the European Winter Conference for Brain Research (EWCBR)

Lab head Claus Lamm has talked at the European Winter Conference for Brain Research EWCBR) about "Using comparative canine functional magnetic...

21.01.2025

SCAN-Unit contribution to the Global Study on Trust in Science

A 68-country study led by Dr. Viktoria Cologna (Harvard University, ETH Zurich) and Dr. Niels G. Mede (University of Zurich) shows high public trust...

23.12.2024

Validating Causal Claims in Observational Studies: A Tool to Test Confounders

Explore the ViSe tool for easy analysis with visual aids.

19.12.2024

Challenges and Promises of Big Team Comparative Cognition.

SCAN Unit Associate Ekaterina Pronizius acted as one of the shared second authors on a new commentary on big team science in comparative cognition.

12.12.2024

Currently there are no open positions at our lab.

Please subscribe to @scanunit.bsky.social where we post new opportunities

09.12.2024

How dopamine shapes trust beliefs.

In their brief review article, Bianca Schuster and Claus Lamm explore how dopamine influences trust learning.

05.12.2024

Open Reproducible Big Team Science

How this powerful duo can enhance collaboration, transparency, and reproducibility of psychological science.

05.12.2024

Social Cognition Workshop in Belgium

Our postdoc, Dr. Ekaterina Pronizius, in collaboration with Prof. Bukowski, organized the Social Cognition Workshop, “From Self-Knowledge to Knowing...

25.10.2024

New paper on everyday helping during COVID-19

Our research team published a paper in Scientific Reports demonstrating that everyday helping is associated with improved mood but increased stress...

25.10.2024

New Book Chapter out: Leveraging the Social Neuroscience of Prosocial Behavior to Advance Our Understanding of Pro-environmental Behavior

New book chapter in the book "Environmental Neuroscience" explores the intersection of social neuroscience and pro-environmental behavior.

14.10.2024

Largest climate psychology experiment to date

New paper on climate change with data collected from 63 countries

14.10.2024

New paper on self-other distinction.

We've all experienced moments of assuming others share our emotions or beliefs. This ability to distinguish between self and others—self-other...

25.09.2024

ESSPD Conference in Antwerp, Belgium.

Self-other distinction across mental disorders. It was an incredible experience sharing our research with the community!

21.09.2024

DGPs

We rock at the DGPs Congress 2024 in Vienna

30.08.2024

L'Oréal Austria fellowship for Women in Science awarded to Magdalena Boch

Following the project's title, Magdalena will be "Setting a New Analysis Standard for Canine Comparative Social Neuroscience" by modeling the BOLD...

31.07.2024

New review paper on domestic dogs as a comparative model for visual social neuroscience

What have we learned so far? Current challenges, potential solutions, and future directions for comparative neuroimaging with dogs

30.07.2024

FWF 3-year Erwin-Schrödinger fellowship awarded to Magdalena Boch

Magdalena will join the Cognitive Neuroecology Lab at the University of Oxford to work on the project "The social temporal lobe: A case of convergent...

30.07.2024

Marietta-Blau Grant awarded to two of our Researchers

Congratulations to Luise Graichen and Julia Braunstein!

01.07.2024

Mentoring Awards

Lab head Claus Lamm receives APS Mentor Award and features as FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence Mentoring Award Finalist

30.06.2024

FENS 2024

Our scannies at the FENS 2024 in Vienna

25.06.2024

ENCODS

21.06.2024

New review paper on the link between shared representations and prosocial behavior, and its relevance for clinical conditions.

How do changes in pain processing systems affect prosocial behavior in pain-related clinical conditions such as chronic pain?

12.06.2024

SIPS Commendation 2024

Ekaterina Pronizius (Postdoc, SCAN-Unit) Recognized with SIPS Commendation for Reaction Time Preprocessing Initiative

23.05.2024 12:37

ESCAN 2024

We rock in Belgium.

15.05.2024

FSR Incoming Post-doc fellowship

Congratulations to Dr. Pronizius!

15.05.2024

International Forum on Clinical Research

Revolutionizing Clinical Psychology through Big Team Science!

20.04.2024

New paper on functional mapping of the somatosensory cortex in dogs published in Brain Structure and Function

What happens in a dog's brain when the dog is being petted?

01.02.2024

New Paper on the Use of Cultural Artifacts as Cognitive Fossils Published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences

How do cultural artifacts help us trace psychological changes throughout history?

09.01.2024

Our latest paper shows the importance of effort costs when considering how prosocial behaviour changes under acute stress

How much effort is involved in helping others and our existing prosocial tendencies could be key to understanding acute stress effects on prosocial...

26.12.2023

New Paper on Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe Published in Archives of Sexual Behavior

How did changing living standards influence romantic love and reproductive behaviors in early modern Europe?

19.12.2023

FWF grant awarded to Claudia Massaccesi, Isabella Wagner, Lei Zhang, and Claus Lamm

The role of incentives and uncertainty in prosocial behavior

15.12.2023

An active inference perspective for the amygdala complex

Maybe the amygdala is not angry or sad or afraid – it's just misunderstood!

11.12.2023

New Paper published: Addressing Climate Change with Behavioral Science: A Global Intervention Tournament in 63 Countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires dramatic, global behavior change. Yet it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people...

06.12.2023

Raúl Hernández Awarded with the ESPRIT Grant

Congratulations!

21.11.2023

2023 International Ferrari Soave Award for Human Biology

Lab head Claus Lamm has received the 2023 International Ferrari Soave Award for Human Biology by the Turin Academy of Sciences.

13.11.2023

A new perspective paper that outlines how neuroscience can be leveraged to fight Climate Change was published in Nature Climate Change

Neuroscience can help us to understand the reciprocal relationships between a changing climate and the brain.

02.10.2023

New paper on psychological and structural brain differences between placebo analgesia responders and non-responders published in Frontiers in Psychology

To respond or not to respond: exploring empathy-related psychological and structural brain differences between placebo analgesia responders and...

20.08.2023

New paper on how dogs predict human action targets published in Open Mind

Dogs rely on visual cues rather than on effector-specific movement representations to predict human action targets

11.07.2023

New Paper on the effect of blocking dopamine receptors on trust in males published in Nature Communications

Blocking D2/D3 dopamine receptors in male participants increases volatility of beliefs when learning to trust others

27.06.2023

New paper on body- and animacy-responsive areas in dogs and humans published in Communications Biology

Functionally analogous body- and animacy-responsive areas are present in the dog (Canis familiaris) and human occipito-temporal lobe

22.06.2023

New Paper on Hippocampal and Cortical Contributions to Hierarchical Representation Published in eLife

How does the brain represent complex hierarchies?

06.06.2023

New paper on age-related differences in interference control published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Age-related differences in interference control in the context of a finger-lifting task: an fMRI study

05.06.2023

New paper on reward network response to social touch in major depression published in Psychological Medicine

There may be altered striatal processing of social touch in major depressive disorder

03.04.2023

New paper on strategic prosocial behaviour published in Neuropsychopharmacology

Testosterone eliminates strategic prosocial behavior through impacting choice consistency in healthy males

28.03.2023

New paper on energetic arousal during acute social isolation published in Psychological Science

Lowered energy could be part of a homeostatic response to a lack of social contact

28.03.2023

New paper on aberrant uncertainty processing published in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

Aberrant uncertainty processing is linked to psychotic-like experiences, autistic traits, and is reflected in pupil dilation during probabilistic...

11.03.2023

New paper on social closeness and prosocial behaviour published in Scientific Reports

Only empathy-related traits, not being mimicked or endorphin release, influence social closeness and prosocial behavior

15.02.2023

New paper using interleaved fMRI/TMS published in NeuroImage

Acute TMS/fMRI response explains offline TMS network effects – An interleaved TMS-fMRI study

11.02.2023

New paper on COVID-19 rapid-response dataset published in Scientific Data

The Psychological Science Accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

31.01.2023

New paper on tracking others navigating through space published in Nature Communications

Entorhinal grid-like codes and time-locked network dynamics track others navigating through space

10.01.2023

New paper on listening to music during COVID-19 lockdown published in JAMA Network Open

Perceptions of stress and mood associated with listening to music in daily life during the COVID-19 lockdown

05.12.2022

New paper on model-based and model-free behaviour published in eLife

Effects of dopamine D2/3 and opioid receptor antagonism on the trade-off between model-based and model-free behaviour in healthy volunteers

30.11.2022

New paper on stress and prosocial behaviours published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Does stress make us more—or less—prosocial? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of acute stress on prosocial behaviours using...

30.11.2022

New paper on prosocial helping published in Psychological Science

Placebo analgesia reduces costly prosocial helping to lower another’s pain

18.11.2022

New paper on vicarious fear learning published in PLOS ONE

The causal role of affect sharing in driving vicarious fear learning

19.10.2022

Remembrance of Andrea Knauseder

We commemorate Andrea Knauseder, a former Master student at the SCAN-Unit.

17.10.2022

New paper on stress and mood during COVID-19 lockdowns published in British Journal of Health Psychology

The effects of social interactions on momentary stress and mood during COVID-19 lockdowns

01.10.2022

New paper on vicarious disgust published in NeuroImage

Effective connectivity reveals distinctive patterns in response to others’ genuine affective experience of disgust

26.09.2022

New paper on COVID-19 health messaging published in Affective Science

In COVID-19 Health Messaging, Loss Framing Increases Anxiety with Little-to-No Concomitant Benefits: Experimental Evidence from 84 Countries

31.07.2022

New paper on attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 published in PNAS Nexus

Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning.

15.07.2022

Marietta-Blau Grant to E. Pronizius!

Congratulations!

27.05.2022

New paper on global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic published in PNAS.

Shame and fear can increase controlled motivation, but using these tactics in public health communications carries certain risks.

25.05.2022

New paper on stress and mood during COVID-19 lockdown published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Diurnal dynamics of stress and mood during COVID-19 lockdown: a large multinational ecological momentary assessment study

30.04.2022

New paper on human emotional egocentricity published in Neurobiology of Aging

Right supra-marginal gyrus and secondary somatosensory cortex play a role in age-related differences in human emotional egocentricity.

20.04.2022

New paper on moral judgments published in Nature Human Behaviour

Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and Western

countries in a culturally diverse sample

08.04.2022

Stipend for ambitious students

Ambitious and talented psychology students can apply for a private funded stipend.

09.02.2022

New paper on stress responses published in Neuropsychopharmacology

Opioid-blunted cortisol response to stress is associated with increased negative mood and wanting of social reward.

26.01.2022

Scientist of the week - interview on placebo research

Why does the placebo effect cause so many vaccine side effects?

03.01.2022

Your sorrow is my sorrow? How we empathize with the emotions of others - Special

What happens in our brain when we observe how another person feels pain? Article in a special issue of In-Mind magazine

29.11.2021

Blog post about new paper on trust

"In amygdala we trust": behind the paper

26.11.2021

New paper on trust

Basolateral and central amygdala orchestrate how we learn whom to trust

02.08.2021

New paper on brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic published in Nature Human Behavior.

Reconstrual and repurposing are the most effective reappraisal strategies.

16.05.2021