Research topic
This line of research investigates the neural basis of instrumental behavior and learning, that is the ability to learn and produce actions as a consequence of their outcomes. Instrumental behavior can be divided into goal-directed and habitual behavior (Balleine & Dickinson, 1998). Habitual behavior consists in the learning and expression of simple stimulus-response associations, while goal-directed behavior involves learning the instrumental contingency between an action and a reward and the acquisition of value by the reward (incentive learning). Goal-directed behavior can be then revealed by devaluation and contingency degradation procedures where either the value of the reward or the contingency between the action and the reward is altered. As an example, imagine an experiment where a rat learns to press a lever to obtain food in a cage. If its behavior is habitual, then it just presses the lever when it sees it (stimulus-response association). Instead if we make the rat sated (food devaluation by satiation) and it stops pressing the lever, then we know that it was not an habit but a goal-directed behavior (it stops pressing the lever because it knows it delivers food and it is not hungry anymore). Research on habitual and goal-directed beahavior has revelead dissociable neural substrates, involving prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia and amygdala (Yin & Knowlton, 2006, Balleine & O'Doherty, 2010). The neural mechanisms and the interplay between these two kinds of instrumental learning and behavior are the subject of intense research, modeling and debate in the literature.
Research specific problems
- How the brain learns action contingencies? Role of dorsomedial striatum (Hart et al., 2013)
- How does devaluation work? Roles of basolateral amygdala, nucleus accumbens core and gustatory insular cortex (Hart et al., 2013)
- The interplay of Pavlovian and instrumental learning: Pavlovian to instrumental transfer effects (Cartoni et al., 2013)
- Roles of dopamine: salience, prediction error, thrift or precision? (Berridge 2007, Beeler 2012, Friston et al. 2012)
- Role of acetylcholine in the striatum - learning contingencies (Bradfield et al., 2013, Laurent et al. 2014)
- Goal-directed vs habitual behavior: competing, cooperating or the same controller? (Daw et al. 2005, Dezfouli & Balleine 2013, Pezzulo et al. 2013)
Research method
- Computational modeling
- Psychological/cognitive experiments on models
Requested motivations of the candidate
- Strong interest in the topic and motivation to carry out research on it (very important)
- Desire to either build computational models or carry out experiments testing them (possibly both)
Requested knowledge of the candidate
- University-level knowledge on psychobiology
Requested skills of the candidate
- Capacity to read and understand scientific papers in English
- Capacity to contribute to write reports in English
- Knowing (or desire to learn) a programming language, such as Python, C++ or MATLAB.
This is especially required for computational modelling, but the experimental part might need some basic programming skills as well.
References
- Balleine, B. W., & Dickinson, A. (1998). Goal-directed instrumental action: contingency and incentive learning and their cortical substrates. Neuropharmacology, 37(4-5), 407–19.
- Balleine, B. W., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2010). Human and rodent homologies in action control: corticostriatal determinants of goal-directed and habitual action. Neuropsychopharmacology, 35(1), 48–69.
- Beeler, J. a. (2012). Thorndike’s Law 2.0: Dopamine and the Regulation of Thrift. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 6(August), 116.Berridge, K. C. (2007). The debate over dopamine’s role in reward: the case for incentive salience. Psychopharmacology, 191(3), 391–431.
- Bradfield, L. A., Bertran-Gonzalez, J., Chieng, B., & Balleine, B. W. (2013). The Thalamostriatal Pathway and Cholinergic Control of Goal-Directed Action: Interlacing New with Existing Learning in the Striatum. Neuron, 1–14.
- Cartoni, E., Puglisi-Allegra, S., & Baldassarre, G. (2013). The three principles of action: a Pavlovian-instrumental transfer hypothesis. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(November), 153.
- Daw, N. D., Niv, Y., & Dayan, P. (2005). Uncertainty-based competition between prefrontal and dorsolateral striatal systems for behavioral control. Nature Neuroscience, 8(12), 1704–11
- Dezfouli, A., & Balleine, B. W. (2013). Actions, Action Sequences and Habits: Evidence That Goal-Directed and Habitual Action Control Are Hierarchically Organized. PLoS Computational Biology, 9(12).
- Friston, K. J., Shiner, T., FitzGerald, T., Galea, J. M., Adams, R., Brown, H., … Bestmann, S. (2012). Dopamine, affordance and active inference. PLoS Computational Biology, 8(1).
- Hart, G., Leung, B. K., & Balleine, B. W. (2013). Dorsal and ventral streams: The distinct role of striatal subregions in the acquisition and performance of goal-directed actions. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 108C(November), 104–118.
- Laurent, V., Bertran-Gonzalez, J., Chieng, B. C., & Balleine, B. W. (2014). δ-Opioid and Dopaminergic Processes in Accumbens Shell Modulate the Cholinergic Control of Predictive Learning and Choice. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(4), 1358–69.
- Pezzulo, G., Rigoli, F., & Chersi, F. (2013). The mixed instrumental controller: using value of information to combine habitual choice and mental simulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(March), 92.
- Yin, H. H., & Knowlton, B. J. (2006). The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 7(6), 464–76.