"Who knows what I want to do?  Who knows what anyone wants to do?  How can you be sure about something like that?  Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex?  ...  Some minor little activity takes place ... in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana."

White Noise, Don DeLillo

Our Research

 

In order to make appropriate choices, it is important not just to evaluate the anticipated benefits of a course of action, but also to consider the costs that will be incurred, such as the delay be tolerated or the effort to be expended in order to achieve a goal.  Such calculations are complicated by the fact that the value of an item is not fixed, but instead depends on the context in which a decision is being made.  We are interested in the way in which our brains are able to integrate across these multiple different types of information in order to guide appropriate decisions.  There is a particular focus on how different aspects of value are learned, represented and used to guide choice behaviour within frontal-striatal-dopaminergic circuits.  The long-term goal is to use the information gleaned about the functional of these systems to better understand how the process of valuation and decision making goes awry in neuropsychiatric disorders.