Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience - CSAN

About

CSAN unites research groups in adult psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, neurobiology, clinical neurophysiology, and neuroeconomics.

Story

CSAN, a research center at Linköping University, integrates knowledge and methodology from different areas of basic and clinical neuroscience.

The main research areas are:
Drug addiction, negative emotions, and stress.
Physical touch-how does it influence emotional state and social connection?
Neuroeconomics – how does the brain manage risky decisions?
Pain and inflammation
Interactions between affect and decision making
Emotional regulation in adolescents who engage in self-harm behaviors.
Effects of early-life trauma on risk for addiction or other psychiatric disorders.

The research center is equipped with the latest research technology, for example, powerful tools that make it possible to quickly and precisely add and delete gene sequences in animal models and to visualize brain activity in patients and experimental subjects.

The research aims to develop methods to reduce activity in the brain areas involved in the stress response, thus reducing the stress and discomfort that can lead to relapse to addiction. The research has an interdisciplinary focus that includes, for example, examination of how decision-making is influenced by social factors and how the brain manages risky decisions.