By the late 1990s, several converging trends in economics, psychology, and neuroscience had set the stage for the birth of a new scientific field known as “neuroeconomics”. Without the availability of an extensive variety of experimental designs for dealing with individual and social decision-making provided by experimental economics and psychology, many neuroeconomics studies could not have been developed. At the same time, without the significant progress made in neuroscience for grasping and understanding brain functioning, neuroeconomics would have never seen the light of day. The paper is an overview of the main significant advances in the knowledge of brain functioning by neuroscience that have contributed to the emergence of neuroeconomics and its rise over the past two decades. These advances are grouped over three non-independent topics referred to as the “emo-rational” brain, “social” brain, and “computational” brain. For each topic, it emphasizes findings considered as critical to the birth and development of neuroeconomics while highlighting some of prominent questions about which knowledge should be improved by future research. In parallel, it shows that the boundaries between neuroeconomics and several recent sub-fields of cognitive neuroscience, such as affective, social, and more generally, decision neuroscience, are rather porous.

到 1990 年代后期，经济学、心理学和神经科学的几种趋同趋势已经为一个被称为“神经经济学”的新科学领域的诞生奠定了基础。如果没有实验经济学和心理学提供的用于处理个人和社会决策的广泛多样的实验设计，许多神经经济学研究就无法发展。与此同时，如果没有神经科学在掌握和理解大脑功能方面取得的重大进展，神经经济学将永远不会出现。该论文概述了神经科学在大脑功能知识方面的主要重大进展，这些进展促成了神经经济学的出现及其在过去二十年的兴起。这些进步分为三个非独立主题，称为“情感理性”大脑、“社交”大脑和“计算”大脑。对于每个主题，它都强调了被认为对神经经济学的诞生和发展至关重要的发现，同时强调了未来研究应改进哪些知识的一些突出问题。同时，它表明神经经济学与认知神经科学的几个最近的子领域（例如情感、社会，以及更普遍的决策神经科学）之间的界限相当薄弱。它强调了被认为对神经经济学的诞生和发展至关重要的发现，同时强调了未来研究应改进哪些知识的一些突出问题。同时，它表明神经经济学与认知神经科学的几个最近的子领域（例如情感、社会，以及更普遍的决策神经科学）之间的界限相当薄弱。它强调了被认为对神经经济学的诞生和发展至关重要的发现，同时强调了未来研究应改进哪些知识的一些突出问题。同时，它表明神经经济学与认知神经科学的几个最近的子领域（例如情感、社会，以及更普遍的决策神经科学）之间的界限相当薄弱。