Modern portfolio theory began to emerge in the early 1950s, exploring how a rational investor would invest in a set of assets to maximize overall returns within an acceptable level of risk.

Despite the analytical and well-crafted models offered by portfolio theory, practice reveals that investors do not always behave rationally or predictably because their psychology plays a significant role when making investment decisions. Thus, behavioral finance was developed in the 1980s, combining behavioral and cognitive psychology with elements of modern portfolio theory, arguing that investor psychology influences their investment decision-making process and financial markets as a whole. 

Neurofinance began to emerge in the early 2000s. It combines alternative scientific fields, mainly including stock market investments, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, helping us investigate and identify the brain mechanisms that guide investment behaviors. 

Neurofinance partly incorporates behavioral finance but further clarifies the biological mechanisms that guide investor behaviors. It investigates brain activity in the investment decision-making processes to explain, in an interdisciplinary way, the irrational behavior of investors.