Carney Conversations: How we decide to love

What does love do to our brains? Why do we fall in love? Why do we stay in love, and what makes us fall out of love?

In recognition of Valentine’s Day, the Carney Institute held a conversation about how the brain is affected by love, featuring two Brown University scientists who study emotion and motivation.

Debbie Yee, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences investigating the neural and computational mechanisms of interactions between motivation/affective processes, cognitive control and value-based decision-making.

Joey Heffner is a Ph.D. candidate in psychology investigating emotions. He received a graduate award in 2020 from the Carney Institute for a project to understand when and how emotions facilitate or impair social decision-making.

This conversation was moderated by Diane Lipscombe, Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Director of the Carney Institute, and Christopher Moore, associate director of the Carney Institute.