The neurocomputational bases of explore-exploit decision-making.

Flexible decision-making requires animals to forego immediate rewards (exploitation) and try novel choice options (exploration) to discover if they are preferable to familiar alternatives. Using the same task and a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model to quantify the value of choices, we first determined that the computational basis for managing explore-exploit tradeoffs is conserved across monkeys and humans. We then used fMRI to identify where in the human brain the immediate value of exploitative choices and relative uncertainty about the value of exploratory choices were encoded.

Anxiety and Alzheimer's disease: Behavioral analysis and neural basis in rodent models of Alzheimer's-related neuropathology.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology is commonly associated with cognitive decline but is also composed of neuropsychiatric symptoms including psychological distress and alterations in mood, including anxiety and depression. Emotional dysfunction in AD is frequently modeled using tests of anxiety-like behavior in transgenic rodents. These tests often include the elevated plus-maze, light/dark test and open field test.

Ventromedial Prefrontal-Anterior Cingulate Hyperconnectivity and Resilience to Apathy in Traumatic Brain Injury.

Apathy is a common and impairing sequela of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Yet, little is known about the neural mechanisms determining in which patients apathy does or does not develop post-TBI. We aimed to elucidate the impact of TBI on motivational neural circuits and how this shapes apathy over the course of TBI recovery.