Neuroeconomics: how neuroscience can impact game theory

Game theory is a mathematical discipline which studies individual decisions of economic subjects in a context of strategic interaction. Its origin is usually made to coincide with the publication of the book "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944. Despite its recent emergence, game theory has already undergone a rapid development in several areas of research. The scope of this thesis is to analyze the economic models which have been developed in the nascent behavioral game theory field starting from the traditional game theory ones and assuming an incremental approach with respect to standard game theory. In order to better understand the reasons underlying players' social actions of fairness and cooperation predicted by behavioral game theory models, some economic games held with the support of neuroimaging techniques are investigated. These economic experiments show that there is a correlation between the activation of specific brain areas, such as the caudate nucleus and some regions of the cerebral cortex, and the subsequent actions pursued by players.