Research & Expertise news at HSE University

A team of researchers at HSE University investigated the neural mechanisms involved in how the brain processes persuasive messages. Using functional MRI, the researchers recorded how the participants' brains reacted to expert arguments about the harmful health effects of sugar consumption. The findings revealed that all unpersuaded individuals' brains responded to the messages in a similar manner, whereas each persuaded individual produced a unique neural response. This suggests that successful persuasive messages influence opinions in a highly individual manner, appearing to find a unique key to each person's brain. The study findings have been published in PNAS.

Anastasia Sherubneva's research focuses on spatial economics, and she is currently writing a dissertation on the crises of 2020 and 2022. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, she discusses the impact of agglomeration effects on enterprises, her home neighbourhood of Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk, and her experience meeting Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman in Portugal.

In high school, Mikhail Shishkin used to dismiss probability theory as mere speculation, but today he applies it to solving problems in population genetics. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, he discusses what a modern person's genome can reveal about the past, the question he would pose to the author of Fermat's Great Theorem, and The Ashley Book of Knots.

A collaborative study by Sergey Stepanov, Associate Professor at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, and experts from INSEAD Business School and NYU Shanghai, indicates that in making decisions under high uncertainty, where it is unclear which choice is superior, advice from independent experts may be more beneficial than a collective opinion from a group of experts. The study has been published in Games and Economic Behavior.

Ilya Semichasnov initially planned to focus on cyber security but discovered greater potential in game development. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, he discusses Bear Head Studio—an indie studio run by students, the corporate culture of humility, and playing airsoft as a way to prevent burnout.

A study conducted at HSE University shows that despite having the same education and similar starting conditions, the pay gap between male and female recent graduates can be as high as 22%. This is partly because female students often choose less lucrative fields and also because they tend to seek jobs in sectors that offer lower pay but are perceived to have more stable and safer working conditions.

Researchers at HSE MIEM have developed a model for calculating the electrical conductivity of aqueous electrolyte solutions; for the first time, it considers the spatial distribution of ion charges instead of assuming their localisation at a single point. The model remains effective even at high electrolyte concentrations and across a wide temperature range. This breakthrough will contribute to the development of more efficient batteries and enable the calculation of electrical conductivity without the need for experimental testing. The study has been published in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

Sergey Medakin began his career as an art historian by studying Sabaton, a Swedish power metal band, and is now focusing on German studies. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, he discusses his favourite Soviet and Western political cartoons, the scientific conference he founded, and the relevance of the past in modern culture.