Prof. Benjamin BECKER

My MIND & AI Lab drives innovation at the intersection of Neuropsychology and Artificial Intelligence to advance Mental Health and Social-Cognitive Affective Sciences. Leveraging recent technological and computational progress, we investigate the neural underpinnings of social-cognitive and affective processes in humans, focusing on how these (1) shape and are shaped by interactions with emerging technologies and new forms of intelligence (such as social media and AI), (2) become dysregulated in mental disorders (including anxiety, depression, and addiction), and (3) can be modulated by neuropeptides (e.g., oxytocin, renin-angiotensin) or brain-inspired technologies (e.g., non-invasive brain stimulation, real-time neurofeedback). My international team employs a comprehensive array of methodologies – from neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience, to experimental psychology, advanced neuroimaging, AI, machine learning-based neural decoding, computational modeling, and both pharmacological and real-time fMRI-guided neuromodulation in healthy and clinical populations. Our findings have been published in more than 350 publications across leading scientifc journals and have been sucessfully translated into randomized clinical trials, paving the way for innovative mental health interventions and policy development. Currently, I serve as Principal Editor of Psychopharmacology, Executive Board Member of Advanced Science, Editor of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, founding co-lead of the CIBD Task Force of the Global Brain Consortium (GBC) and the Strategic Research Topic AI, Society & Social Dynamics at the HKU FoSS, and I have been recognized among the World’s Top 1% or Top 2% scientists by Clarivate or Stanford, respectively.

[2026] Jiang H, He J, Zimmermann K, Zhou X, Gan X , Ferraro S, Wang L, Zhou B, Kendrick KM, Zhao W, Yao D, Yuan T, Feng Z, Becker B (2026) Common and distinct neurofunctional signatures of dynamic naturalistic emotion regulation strategies. Nature Communications 17: 4272 [2026] Han M, Dong W, Fu K, Wang J, Xu Y, Zheng Y, Kendrick K, Ferraro S, Xu T, Yao D, Becker B (2026) Vasopressin and angiotensin II pathways differentially modulate human fear response dynamics to looming threats. PLOS Biology 24:e3003668 [2025] Becker B (2025) Will our social brain inherently shape – and be shaped by – interactions with AI? Neuron 113: 2037-2041 [2025] Montag C, Spape M, Becker B (2025) Challenges and opportunities of AI solutions to loneliness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 29: 869-871 [2025] Fu K, Xu S