Congratulations to Su who got a postdoctoral grant from the Belgian Fonds Spéciaux de Recherche (FSR) involving 2 years of funding.
The goal of her research project is to explore the hypothesis that the co-regulation between decision urgency and movement vigor arises from influences originating in subcortical structures, such as the arousal system and basal ganglia (BG) circuitry. Specifically, the contribution of the arousal system will be tested by means of transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation, while the role of the BG circuitry will be addressed through pharmacological manipulations, with endpoint measures obtained at the level of behavior, electroencephalography & pupillometry. This work is relevant for fundamental neuroscience and also for neurology, as it will help better understand the neural source of decision urgency/impulsivity and the nature of the link that connects this to motor-related aspects of behavior, specifically the vigor of movements.
Congratulations to Pierre who successfully defended his PhD !
On the 7th of February, Pierre successfully defended his PhD entitled "Mechanisms underlying reinforcement learning of motor skills". Pierre performed this work jointly between the CoActions lab and the lab of Prof. Friedhelm Hummel at EPFL, in Switzerland. His PhD work investigated the involvement of reinforcement learning processes during the acquisition and retention of new motor skills with behavioural appraches, as well as non-invasive brain stimulation and fMRI. Pierre is now a post-doc at EPFL where he works on temporal interference stimulation and reinforcement learning.
Fostine completed her Master in Behavioral Neuroscience at Université Caen Normandie, where she focused on the atypical visual processing of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as an explanation of their difficulty to communicate and interact with others. She joined the CoActions Lab in February 2023 to begin a PhD. Her goal is to investigate the role of motor structures in impulsive decision making in alcohol-dependent individuals.
More info about Fostine can be found here: https://www.coactionslab.com/people?layout=edit&id=277
Welcome to the lab!
Julie was awarded a grant from the Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) involving 4 years of funding and the possibility to hire new research fellows. The grant involves an amount of 330 kEuros and the project will aim at better understanding the sources of urgency during decision making and their relationship to impulsivity.
