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Mark Walton

 

Thursday 17th March 2016

Time: 3.00pm

 

3rd Floor Seminar Room

25 Howland Street, London, W1T 4JG

 

Why does dopamine encode the value of future rewards?

 

It is widely accepted that the activity of many dopamine neurons and dopamine release in parts of the striatum represent predictions of future rewards. But we still know surprisingly little about the content and function of these signals. I will discuss a series of studies in rats where we try to better understand the relationship between rapid changes in dopamine, current value, choice and movement.

 

Bio
I am a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellow and University Research Lecturer at the University of Oxford. My laboratory uses techniques to measure and manipulate neurochemistry and neural activity, principally in rodents though also in monkeys, to investigate the neurobiology of reward-guided learning and decision making.