Projects

Habits and Dopamine

One major postulate of many contemporary theories of human behaviour is that actions imposes automatic chunks across multiple response types (e.g. motor, associative, emotional, physiological,…). The cortico-striatal loops specialize to process each of the response types in a functionally specific manner. Importantly, in the context of dopamine loss, Parkinson’s disease patients experience changes in habitual components of behaviour (such as writing). In this project, we are focused on habits across everyday life and experimental tasks in health and disease using neuroimaging, physiology and neuromodulation. Our aim is understanding habitual control across behavioural disciplines and to examine conditions where automatisms are lost.

The Neural Basis of Cognitive Control

This project is concerned with understanding the physiological, behavioral, and circuitry behind cognitive control. Using fMRI measures of brain activation, combined with neuromodulation, this project tests hypotheses concerning specific prefrontal regions thought to be associated with cognitive control, as well as specific subcortical structures such as the striatum, thought to be associated with reward and emotion influence over controlling systems. Moreover, we define computational models that help predict learning of stimulus-response associations linked to cognitive control. Human models of failed control are exploited in patients with brain lesions or impulsivity issues.

Excessive Behaviours and Brain disease

The goal of this project is to use self-report, behavioral and neuroimaging assessments in individual’s with excessive forms of behaviour, such as impulsivity or addictions. The project includes the use of cognitive paradigms that adequately capture the mental operations in neuropsychiatric conditions using relevant provocative stimuli of the associated pathological behaviour. We are interested in deciphering the behavioural and neural substrate behind excessive behaviours and brain disorders such as addiction, impulse control disorders or Parkinson's disease. To this, we use human models of addiction and Parkinson’s disease pathophysiology to better understand the neural changes that drive aberrant behaviours.

Social Interactions and Morality

To cooperate and interact in social contexts, individuals must read others intentions. This line of research is focused in understanding behavioural and cortical networks dedicated in social behaviours such as altruism and theory of mind. To this, we use causality test (using neuromodulation) and Parkinson’s disease patients to depict the brain-behaviour interactions needed during social interactions. One goal of this work is to understand the role of dopamine and inter-related circuits in basic social cognition and when these fail (as possible markers of cognitive deterioration and dementia in neurodegenerative conditions).

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