James Thompson

Research Description

Dr. Thompson leads the Computational Social Neuroscience Group (CSNG) studying social and affective processing in humans, with particular emphasis on cognitive, neural, and computational processes. The CSNG and collaborators are interested in how social and affective processes develop through adolescence and into adulthood, and how problems with these processes can lead to psychopathology and substance abuse. The CSNG uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERPs), and repetitive transcranial magnetic resonance imaging (rTMS) to measure and perturb neural processes. The CSNG uses network analyses, reinforcement learning, agent-based modeling, and dynamical systems approaches to develop statistical and computational models of social and affective processes. The group’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Biohealth Innovation at GMU.

Selected Publications

• Wheaton, K. J., Thompson, J. C., Syngeniotis, A., Abbott, D. F., & Puce, A. (2004). Viewing the motion of human body parts activates different regions of premotor, temporal, and parietal cortex. NeuroImage, 22(1), 277-288.
• Configural processing of biological motion in human superior temporal sulcus. Journal of Neuroscience, 25(39), 9059-9066.