Personal profile
Research interests
At the Theoretical Social Neuroscience Lab, we are interested in testing and developing theories of social behavior, cognition and neuroscience.
These theories can be based on both verbal and mathematical models. We are committed to the development of theory-driven, ecological, social paradigms to test these models and possibly generate better ones. Work in the lab is hence both theoretical (e.g., concept clarification, phenomenon definition, process formalization) and empirical (e.g., in-lab and online behavioral testing, neuroimaging techniques).
Even though the focus of the lab is predominantly on the social domain, our work spans other aspects of cognition as well, such as memory, attention, domain-general learning and inference processes.
See for publications here.
Personal profile
Gabriele Bellucci is a Lecturer of Social Neuroscience and Director of the Centre for Decision Sciences and the Theoretical Social Neuroscience Lab at RHUL.
After a training in philosophy (BA and MA), he moved on to cognitive neuroscience and worked with neuroeconomists in Berlin and Washington DC (MSc). Gabriele obtained his PhD in Psychology at the Free University in Berlin and did postdoctoral work at the Department of Computational Neuroscience at the Max-Planck-Institute for biological Cybernetics.
His research investigates varying aspects of cognition like learning, memory and belief formation, with focus on social decision-making, its algorithmic representation and neural implementation.
Teaching
I currently lecture in PS3191 (Social Brain), PS4208/5208 (Neuroscience in the Real World), PS5210 (Applied Neuroscience Methods), and PS2120 (How Can Psychology Change the World?).
Education/Academic qualification
Cognitive Neuroscience, PhD, The Neural and Psychological Dynamics of Trust, Freie Universität Berlin
Award Date: 14 Nov 2019
Keywords
- Social cognition
- Computational Modeling
- Decision Making
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Theoretical Social Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Social psychology
- Psychology of Memory
- Learning
- Psychology of mental health
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Willingness to trust is reduced by loneliness and paranoia
Bellucci, G., Keramati, M., Hanssen, E. & Fett, A.-K., 29 Jan 2026, In: Communications Psychology. 4, 17.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Explaining neural mechanisms of age-related dedifferentiation in the ventral stream through deep neural networks
Rechardt, A., Bellucci, G. & Mok, R., 2025.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review
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Neurocomputational mechanisms of maladaptive behaviors in loneliness
Bellucci, G., Imada, H., Fett, A.-K. & Ito, A., 15 Aug 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Neurocomputational mechanisms of personal benefits and justifications in moral decision-making
Sai, L., Wang, C., Lv, Y. & Bellucci, G., 10 Jun 2025, In: Communications Biology. 8, 906.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
A Standard Framework for Social Cognition: interoperable algorithms for inference and representation
Barnby, J., Alon, N., Bellucci, G., Schilbach, L., Frith, C. & Bell, V., 14 Jan 2024, (Submitted) In: Psychological Review.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Neurocomputational principles of social inferences in lonely individuals
Bellucci, G. (PI)
1/10/25 → 30/06/27
Project: Research
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Closing the computational gap through interdisciplinary learning
Bellucci, G. (PI)
1/03/25 → 31/12/25
Project: Knowledge Exchange and Impact