Paul Glimcher

In 2016, in light of governmental fiscal austerity for basic research at all levels, Glimcher founded Human Project Inc., then an NYU incubator company established to develop the foundational technologies used by The HUMAN Project and commercialize those technologies to generate revenue which can in turn sustain the long-term operation of The HUMAN Project, whose funding is supplemented by limited Federal and philanthropic funding. Now called Datacubed Healthcare, its product is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which can enable new methods of: data analytics for large-scale datasets; conducting clinical or basic biomedical/behavioral research; and recruiting and retaining human research subjects. Today Datacubed health sells its product to Pharma and CROs. Glimcher is currently the CEO of Datacubed Health.

In 2016, Glimcher and co-authors explained how a preexisting survey-based methodology for valuing public environmental goods (e.g. public parks)––“Contingent Valuation”––could be refined with a neuroeconomical approach. Glimcher et al. incorporated fMRI measurements to contrast with the outputs of traditional contingent valuation. Their research showed that the way people value environmental public goods differs on a neurobiological level from “neural activity associated with previously examined goods and preference measures”. In other words, people value environmental goods differently from other tangible goods, like food or clothing. While further research is required in this line of inquiry, the research could influence public policy and how scientists communicate with the public about dangers posed to the environment and/or shared resources.

After starting up the Institute for the Study of Decision Making in 2014, Glimcher––working with Miyoung Chun of The Kavli Foundation––also began the development of a new interdisciplinary longitudinal study sponsored by The Kavli Foundation, called the Kavli HUMAN Project. One of his signature achievements, the Kavli HUMAN Project is a “big human data” research platform that took its inspiration from big data surveys in other disciplines, in particular the astronomy community's Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The survey will study tens of thousands of Americans for decades, much like past longitudinal studies––such as the Framingham Heart Study––except that the scope of measurements and disciplines covered by The HUMAN Project eclipse any past biomedical or behavioral research longitudinal study.

In 2011, with Ifat levy, Stephanie Lazzaro and Robb Rutledge, he published the first demonstration that activity patterns in the human medial prefrontal cortex, measured in the absence of choice behavior, could be used to predict later choices by the same individuals in the Journal of Neuroscience. In 2013, with Kenway Louie and Mel Win Khaw, he demonstrated that efficient compressive encoding of subjective value by neurons in the brains of monkeys predicts novel anomalies in choice behavior which they subsequently observed in both monkeys and humans. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In 2009 he served as lead editor along with Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, and Russell Poldrack of the first textbook dedicated to the discipline of neuroeconomics: Neuroeconomics Decision-Making and the Brain (2008, Elsevier). That book won the 2009 PROSE Award for Excellence in the [Economic and] Social Sciences. In 2011 he published Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis (2011, Oxford) and, in 2014 with Ernst Fehr, completed a second edition of this textbook.

His 2009 textbook on neuroeconomics received the American Association of Publishers PROSE Award for Excellence in the Social Sciences.

In 2007 Glimcher and Joe Kable were the first to demonstrate a clear subject value signal in the human brain that could be effectively disassociated from objective value signals. This finding was published in Nature Neuroscience. In 2010, with Andrew Caplin, Mark Dean and Robb Rutledge, he published the first example of an axiomatic economic analysis applied to the neurobiology of decision-making in The Quarterly Journal of Economics. This paper was also the first in a first-tier economic journal to include images of brain scans.

Glimcher's laboratory has conducted extensive research on the brain's reward system, in particular the dopamine system and reinforcement learning. In 2005, with Hannah Bayer, he published the first quantitative test of the Dopamine Reward Prediction Error Hypothesis based on single neuron recordings from dopamine neurons and a novel kernel-based analysis in Neuron.

In 2004, he founded the Center for Neuroeconomics at New York University, one of the first research centers ever dedicated to the field. In 2006, Glimcher became an Associate Professor in Economics in addition to his postings in neural science and psychology, and in 2008 was promoted to full Professor of Neural Science, Economics, and Psychology. In 2010, Glimcher became the Silver Endowed Chair in Neural Science. In March 2014 the Center for Neuroeconomics became the Institute for the Study of Decision Making, reporting directly to NYU's Provost.

In 2004, he founded the Center for Neuroeconomics at NYU––the first such research entity devoted to the field––while also serving as the founding president of the Society for Neuroeconomics. The Center for Neuroeconomics became the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Decision Making in 2014 and Institute for the Study of Decision Making in 2017.

Glimcher is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the McKnight, Whitehall, Klingenstein, and McDonnell Foundations, as well as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He is or has been an investigator of the National Eye Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute on Aging. He has also won the Margaret and Herman Sokol Faculty Award in the Sciences in 2003 and NYU's Distinguished (Lifetime Accomplishment) Teaching Award in 2006.

Glimcher is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the McKnight, Whitehall, Klingenstein and McDonnell Foundations as well as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He is an investigator of the National Eye Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute on Aging. He has also won the Margaret and Herman Sokol Faculty Award in the Sciences in 2003 and NYU's Distinguished (Lifetime Accomplishment) Teaching Award in 2006.

In 1999, with neuroscientist, Michael Platt, Glimcher was the first to demonstrate a utility-like value signal in the brain of a living creature. This finding appeared in the peer reviewed journal Nature. In 2004, with Michael Dorris, he published the first experimental test of the hypothesis that the Nash Equilibrium in strategic games specifies an internal representation of value in the peer-reviewed journal Neuron. They found that, as hypothesized by Nash, mixed strategy equilibria emerge when the subject values of options being mixed are equivalent.

In 1994, Glimcher began work as an Assistant Professor in Neural Science at New York University. In 2001 he was promoted to Associate Professor of Neural Science and Psychology.

The field of neuroeconomics began to develop in the late 1990s as a natural out-growth of the maturation of many different disciplines––such as neuroscience, psychology, and economics––happening all at once. Glimcher was instrumental in facilitating the development of the bourgeoning of the field by recognizing these trends and understanding that future groundbreaking behavioral science research would require an interdisciplinary approach to overcome the inherent research limitations of any one discipline. He co-authored what is often referred to as the first academic paper in neuroeconomics, with American neurobiologist, Michael Platt, which was published in the journal Nature in 1999. His first book, Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics (MIT Press) was published in 2003 and is often identified as the first book to use the word Neuroeconomics. That book won the PROSE Award for Best Medical Science Book of 2003.

Growing up in New York City, Glimcher attended the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. In 1983 Glimcher received an A.B. magna cum laude in neuroscience from Princeton University. In 1989 he received a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania, studying under the American psychologist, C. Randy Gallistel. Glimcher's was the first doctoral degree in neuroscience awarded by the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul W. Glimcher (born November 3, 1961) is an American neuroeconomist, neuroscientist, psychologist, economist, scholar, and entrepreneur. He is one of the foremost researchers focused on the study of human behavior and decision-making, and is known for his central role in founding and developing the field of neuroeconomics which takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how humans make decisions. Glimcher also founded the Institute for the Study of Decision Making at New York University, which he currently directs.