QBI Neuroscience Seminar: Predictive learning and the cognitive control of action

Event Details

Date:

Wednesday, 14 September 2016 - Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Time:

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Room:

QBI Level 7 Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)

URL:

http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Professor Bernard Balleine, Head, Decision Neuroscience Laboratory
School of Psychology, University of NSW, Kensington NSW

Title: Predictive learning and the cognitive control of action
Abstract: The cognitive control of action reflects our ability to extract and encode causal relationships from the environment to guide choice between different courses of action. To investigate this process at both a psychological and a neural level we have adopted a model of cognitive control in animals in which the influence of predictive learning on action selection is assessed in an instrumental choice situation: the Pavlovian-instrumental transfer paradigm. Over several years we have been systematically investigating the core neural systems and cellular circuits that mediate this transfer effect and, in this presentation, I will describe the background to this research project and our most recent findings.