Dr. Donald Pfaff

Donald Pfaff, Rockefeller University, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The author of several books on the brain and behavior, he received the 2005 Award for Excellence in Professional and Scholarly Publishing (medical science category) of the Association of American Publishers for his work, Brain Arousal and Information Theory. He received the 2010 Ipsen Foundation Prize in Neuronal Plasticity and the Daniel S. Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award in Behavioral Neuroendocrinology in 2011.

Abstract: "Altruistic Brain Theory: Mechanisms Underpinning Behaviors that Obey an Ethical Universal." The lecture takes the position that altruistic behavior can be treated as a natural neurobiological phenomenon, regulated by mechanisms that are universal across the scope of humans' brains. Most importantly, an efficient theory of how these mechanisms work will be presented; a bried digest of the book The Altruistic Brain. this theory explains a wide range of prosocial behaviors without making any special assumptions about human neurophysiological capacities. Explaining altruistic behavior in theis mechanistic way is perfectly compatible with evolutionary theories. While countervailing tendencies toward male aggression must be admitted (and can be explained), we think that procosial mechanisms explains a very large percentage of the behaviors shown by a very large percentage of people.