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David V. Smith

David V. Smith sitting in an office with a blue shirt smiling and staring into the camera

David V. Smith

  • College of Liberal Arts

    • Psychology and Neuroscience

      • Associate Professor

      • Affiliated Faculty

        Programs

        • Neuroscience

Curriculum Vitae  

Expertise

Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroeconomics, Decision Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Neuroimaging

Biography

I’m an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University, where I direct the Neuroeconomics Laboratory and serve as Associate Director of Temple’s Brain Research and Imaging Center. My research asks how people evaluate rewards, decide whom to trust, and coordinate their behavior in social and economic environments. I’m especially interested in how these processes change across the lifespan and why they go awry in some individuals but not others. To investigate these questions, my lab combines neuroimaging, computational modeling, behavioral economics, and transcranial electrical stimulation. Our goal is to link neural mechanisms to individual differences in behavior, and to apply that knowledge to problems in mental health, aging, and public policy.

I earned my Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Duke University in 2012 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University–Newark before joining Temple in 2017. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on decision neuroscience, behavioral economics, statistics, and functional MRI methods. In recognition of my teaching and mentoring efforts, I’ve received Temple’s Psychology Honors Excellence in Mentoring Award and the College of Liberal Arts Presidential Faculty Award. My research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute on Aging. I’ve also been recognized as a Rising Star and a Fellow by the Association for Psychological Science. Finally, I serve as an Associate Editor at Collabra: Psychology and as an active peer reviewer for nearly 100 journals across neuroscience, psychology, and decision science.

Website

Selected Publications

  • Smith DV, Lockwood P, Fareri DS (Eds.). (2025). Neuroeconomics: Core Topics and Current Directions. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-02925-6_30
  • Tropea T, Yang Y, Ludwig R, Fareri DS, Mennis J, Smith DV (2025). Reduced community-level social cohesion is associated with higher risk for financial exploitation. Aging and Mental Health, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2025.2533493
  • Yang Y, Hackett K, Katta S, Ludwig R, Jarcho J, Giovannetti T, Fareri DS, Smith DV (2025). Psychological, social, and health-related factors predict risk for financial exploitation. Communications Psychology, 3, 88. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00266-x
  • Smith DV, Ludwig RM, Dennison JB, Reeck C, Fareri DS (2024). An fMRI Dataset on Social Reward Processing and Decision Making in Younger and Older Adults. Scientific Data, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02931-y
  • Dobryakova E, Smith DV (2022). Reward Enhances Connectivity between the Ventral Striatum and the Default Mode Network. NeuroImage, 285:119398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119398
  • Fareri DS, Hackett K, Tepfer LJ, Kelly V, Henninger N, Reeck C, Giovannetti T, Smith DV (2022). Age-Related Differences in Ventral Striatal and Default Mode Network Function During Reciprocated Trust. NeuroImage, 256:119267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119267
  • Tepfer LJ, Alloy LB, Smith DV (2021). Family History of Depression is Associated with Alterations in Task-Dependent Connectivity between the Cerebellum and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. Depression and Anxiety, 38(5), 508-520. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.23143
  • Ng TH, Alloy LB, Smith DV (2019). Meta-analysis of Reward Processing in Major Depressive Disorder Reveals Distinct Abnormalities within the Reward Circuit. Translational Psychiatry, 9(293). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0644-x
  • Smith DV, Gseir M, Speer ME, Delgado MR (2016). Toward a Cumulative Science of Functional Integration: a Meta-Analysis of Psychophysiological Interactions. Human Brain Mapping, 37(8), 2904-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23216
  • Smith DV, Clithero JA, Rorden C, Karnath H-O (2013). Decoding the Anatomical Network of Spatial Attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 110(4), 1518-1523. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1210126110
  • Smith DV, Hayden BY, Truong T-K, Song AW, Platt ML, Huettel SA (2010). Distinct Value Signals in Anterior and Posterior Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(7), 2490-2495. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3319-09.2010

Courses Taught

  • NSCI 3008: Decision Neuroscience
  • NSCI 3010: Neuroimaging: from Image Formation to Statistical Inference
  • PSY 5003: Advanced Statistics