Dylan received his B.A. in Psychology from McGill University and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Dartmouth College. He directs the Interpersonal Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at The Ohio State University. Research in his lab examines how the human brain represents other people and how social relationships may be rewired by new technologies. Using functional neuroimaging, machine learning, and naturalistic social tasks, his work investigates how the brain encodes close relationships such as friends, parasocial figures (celebrities, fictional characters), and AI companions.

Another line of research in his laboratory involves understanding the role of motivation, self-control and desire in precipitating self-regulation failures. Using a combination of eye-tracking, functional neuroimaging and measures of structural and functional brain connectivity, this work examines how individual differences in the ability to regulate desire for appetitive stimuli (food, cigarettes, alcohol) can be used to predict real-world self control failures.

Awards, Honors and Recognition

2015: Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science
2013: Fellow, Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, Davis & University of California, Santa Barbara
2012: Runner Up, Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) Dissertation Award
2011: Hannah Croasdale Award for Academic Excellence, Dartmouth College
2009: William M. Smith Promise Award in the Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College
2009: Fellow, Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, Santa Barbara
2007: Marie A. Center 1982 Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching, Dartmouth College

Selected Journal Articles 

Social Perception 

Broom, T. W., & Wagner, D. D. (2023). The boundary between real and fictional others in the medial prefrontal cortex is blurred in lonelier individuals. Cerebral Cortex 33(16), 9677–9689. 

Broom, T.W., Stahl, J.L., Ping, E.E.C., Wagner, D.D. (2022). They Saw a Debate: Political Polarization Is Associated with Greater Multivariate Neural Synchrony When Viewing the Opposing Candidate Speak. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 35(1):60-73.

Broom, T.W., Chavez, R.S., Wagner, D.D. (2021). Becoming the King in the North: Identification with Fictional Characters is Associated with Greater Self-Other Neural Overlap. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 16(6), 541–551. 

Chavez, R.S., Wagner, D.D. (2020). The neural representation of self is recapitulated in the brains of friends: A round-robin fMRI study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 118(3), 407–416.

Wagner, D.D., Chavez, R.S., Broom, T.W. (2019). Decoding the Neural Representation of Self and Person Knowledge with Multivariate Pattern Analysis and Data Driven Approaches. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 10(1), e1482. 

Lopez, R.B., Salinger, J.M., Heatherton, T.F., Wagner, D.D. (2018). Media multitasking is associated with altered processing of incidental, irrelevant cues during person perception. BMC Psychology 6(44). 

Chavez, R.S., Heatherton, T.F., Wagner, D.D. (2017). Neural Population Decoding Reveals the Intrinsic Positivity of the Self. Cerebral Cortex 27(11): 5222-5229. 

Wagner, D.D., Kelley, W.M., Haxby, J.V., Heatherton, T.F. (2016). The dorsal medial prefrontal cortex responds preferentially to social interactions during natural viewing. Journal of Neuroscience 36(26): 6917-6925. 

Wagner, D.D., Haxby, J.V., Heatherton, T.F. (2012). The Representation of Self and Person Knowledge in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 3(4): 451–470. 

Wagner, D. D. , Kelley, W. M. and Heatherton, T. F. (2011). Individual Differences in the Spontaneous Recruitment of Brain Regions Supporting Mental State Understanding When Viewing Natural Social Scenes. Cerebral Cortex, 21, 2788-96. 

Self-Regulation and Reward 

Londerée, A.M., Wagner, D.D. (2021). The orbitofrontal cortex spontaneously encodes food health and contains more distinct representations for foods highest in taste. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 16(8), 816–826. 

Lopez, R.B., Heatherton, T.F., Wagner, D.D. (2019). Media multitasking is associated with higher risk for obesity and increased responsiveness to rewarding food stimuli. Brain Imaging and Behavior 14(4), 1050–1061. 

Lopez, R.B., Courtney, A.L., Wagner, D.D. (2019). Recruitment of prefrontal cortex during effortful self-control is subsequently associated with an altered balance of brain activity in control and reward systems during exposure to appetitive food commercials. PeerJ 7, e6550. 

Londeree, A.M., Roberts, M.E., Wewers, M.E., Peters, E., Ferketich, A.K., Wagner, D.D. (2018). Adolescent Attentional Bias Toward Real-World Flavored E-Cigarette Marketing. Tobacco Regulatory Science 4(6), 57-65. 

Courtney, A.L., PeConga, E.K., Wagner, D.D., Rapuano, K.M. (2018). Calorie information and dieting status modulate reward and control activation in response to food images. PLoS ONE e0204744. 

Lopez, R.B., Salinger, J.M., Heatherton, T.F., Wagner, D.D. (2018). Media multitasking is associated with altered processing of incidental, irrelevant cues during person perception. BMC Psychology 6(44). 

Wagner, D.D., Altman, M., Boswell, R.G., Kelley, W.M., Heatherton, T.F. (2013). Self-Regulatory Depletion Enhances Neural Responses to Rewards and Impairs Top-Down Control. Psychological Science 24(11): 2262–71.