Our lab uses a combination of neurophysiology, pharmacology and imaging to understand how a set of brain areas composed of the amygdala, ventral-striatum, prefrontal cortical areas and dopamine underlie learning. We specifically study learning to predict whether choices tend to lead to good or bad outcomes. We work closely with clinical collaborators, sometimes implementing tasks in animals that have shown differences between patients and controls, sometimes taking findings from the animal work to clinical populations. As we develop a better understanding of how these brain systems drive learning, we can develop a better understanding of how pathology in these systems can underlie various psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression and behavioral addictions. Recent work has focused on broadening our understanding of the network of areas important for these learning processes. Current conceptions of the circuitry that underlies this learning focuses on dopamine and the ventral-striatum, whereas our recent work also points to an important role for the amygdala. Ongoing work examines whether different neural systems underlie learning from positive vs. negative outcomes (rewards vs. punishments) and whether overlapping or distinct neural systems underlie learning actions that are beneficial, vs. learning to choose objects that are beneficial. We have recently found that the ventral-striatum plays a specific role in learning from rewards, when they are associated with objects.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
2018
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
U.S. National Institute of Mental Health
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
State
Country
Zip Code
Ferrante, Michele; Redish, A David; Oquendo, Maria A et al. (2018) Computational psychiatry: a report from the 2017 NIMH workshop on opportunities and challenges. Mol Psychiatry :
Lee, M R; Scheidweiler, K B; Diao, X X et al. (2018) Oxytocin by intranasal and intravenous routes reaches the cerebrospinal fluid in rhesus macaques: determination using a novel oxytocin assay. Mol Psychiatry 23:115-122
Vanes, Lucy D; Mouchlianitis, Elias; Collier, Tracy et al. (2018) Differential neural reward mechanisms in treatment-responsive and treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Psychol Med 48:2418-2427
Martinelli, Cristina; Rigoli, Francesco; Averbeck, Bruno et al. (2018) The value of novelty in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 192:287-293
Ruitenberg, Marit F L; Wu, Tina; Averbeck, Bruno B et al. (2018) Impulsivity in Parkinson's Disease Is Associated With Alterations in Affective and Sensorimotor Striatal Networks. Front Neurol 9:279
Heim, Beatrice; Pertl, Marie-Theres; Stefani, Ambra et al. (2018) Reflection impulsivity perceptual decision-making in patients with restless legs syndrome. Ann Clin Transl Neurol 5:315-322
Vicario-Feliciano, Raquel; Murray, Elisabeth A; Averbeck, Bruno B (2017) Ventral striatum lesions do not affect reinforcement learning with deterministic outcomes on slow time scales. Behav Neurosci 131:385-91
Averbeck, Bruno B; Costa, Vincent D (2017) Motivational neural circuits underlying reinforcement learning. Nat Neurosci 20:505-512
Merchant, Hugo; Averbeck, Bruno B (2017) The Computational and Neural Basis of Rhythmic Timing in Medial Premotor Cortex. J Neurosci 37:4552-4564
Caminiti, Roberto; Borra, Elena; Visco-Comandini, Federica et al. (2017) Computational Architecture of the Parieto-Frontal Network Underlying Cognitive-Motor Control in Monkeys. eNeuro 4:

Showing the most recent 10 out of 75 publications