Brian Knutson

Brian Knutson is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, with affiliations at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Bio-X, and Institute for Human-Centered AI. His research focuses on elucidating the neural basis of emotion and its implications for decision-making and psychopathology.

• Key Affiliations: Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Bio-X, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
• Programs: Symbolic Systems Program

Knutson's work spans affective neuroscience, neuroeconomics, and addiction mechanisms. He investigates how biogenic amines modulate emotional experience using methods like psychopharmacology and fMRI. His studies link neural activity in regions like the nucleus accumbens and anterior insula to risky choices, resource sharing, and treatment outcomes in alcohol use disorder.

Recent research trends highlight his exploration of MDMA's neural effects in PTSD subthreshold populations, Ketamine's altered states, and neuroforecasting to model market behavior. Collaborative work connects white-matter tracts to relapse prediction and examines cultural variations in neural responses to social rewards.

Teaching includes graduate and undergraduate courses in Affective Neuroscience, Brain and Decision Making, and Neurophenomics. His lab trains doctoral students and conducts NIH-funded clinical trials on neuromodulation therapies.

Notable findings include:

• Disentangling distinct neural predictors of risky choices (NAcc vs. insula)
• Demonstrating MDMA's normalization of negative affect circuits
• Identifying cultural differences in trust via ideal affect matching
• Linking anterior insula activity to stimulant relapse