Reward, Decision Making and Psychopathology Group

Head: Ray Dolan

The work of the group has focused on fundamental research questions related to cognition as well their breakdown in psychiatric disorders.  A major focus has been on the role of neural replay during inference. Here the group demonstrated that replay provides a mechanistic basis for solving the so-called credit-assignment problem (Liu et al., Science, 2021). In collaborative work the group established that enhanced activity in the brains default mode network (DMN) is tightly coupled to onset of replay events (Higgins et al., Neuron, 2021).  Extending this to patients with schizophrenia we showed impoverished expression of replay that in part may reflect an inability to form abstract task-related structural codes (Liu et al., Cell, 2021).  In methodological work the group has detailed their approach to replay, Temporally Delayed Linear Modelling (TDLM), that enables a common approach to rodent and human replay measurement (Liu et al., eLife, 2021).

The group also study decision making within a dual model framework of model-based and model-free control.  Here, we demonstrated an interdependence between these two forms of control, showing that model-based planners are sensitive to their model-free dispositions (Moran et al., PLoS Computational Biology, 2021). Relatedly, we showed that a cognitive map influences model-free assignment for rewards related to a choice, where by task design this modulation is only possible based on knowledge of task structure (Moran et al., PNAS, 2021).

Key publications

  1. Liu, Y., Mattar, M. G., Behrens, T. E. J., Daw, N. D., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Experience replay is associated with efficient nonlocal learning. Science, 372(6544), eabf1357. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf1357. PMID: 34016753
  2. Higgins, C., Liu, Y., Vidaurre, D., Kurth-Nelson, Z., Dolan, R., Behrens, T., & Woolrich, M. (2021). Replay bursts in humans coincide with activation of the default mode and parietal alpha networks. Neuron, 109(5), 882-893.e887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2020.12.007. PMID: 33357412
  3. Nour, M. M., Liu, Y., Arumuham, A., Kurth-Nelson, Z., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Impaired neural replay of inferred relationships in schizophrenia. Cell, 184(16), 4315-4328.e4317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.012. PMID: 34197734
  4. Liu, Y., Dolan, R. J., Higgins, C., Penagos, H., Woolrich, M. W., Ólafsdóttir, H. F., Barry, C., Kurth-Nelson, Z., & Behrens, T. E. (2021). Temporally delayed linear modelling (TDLM) measures replay in both animals and humans. eLife, 10, e66917. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66917. PMID: 34096501
  5. Moran, R., Keramati, M., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Model based planners reflect on their model-free propensities. PLOS Computational Biology, 17(1), e1008552. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008552. PMID; 33411724
  6. Moran, R., Dayan, P., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Human subjects exploit a cognitive map for credit assignment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(4), e2016884118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016884118. PMID: 33479182
Web-View
Print Page
Open in new window
Estimated DIN-A4 page-width
Go to Editor View