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MIB GUEST TALK: PROF WOLFRAM SCHULTZ

Center for Music in the Brain (MIB) is delighted to present Professor Wolfram Schultz from the University of Cambridge

13.10.2017 | Henriette Blæsild Vuust

Dato ons 01 nov
Tid 13:30 15:00
Sted Eduard Biermann Auditorium - Søauditorierne, Aarhus University. Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus. (Building 1252, room 204)

TITLE
Getting the best reward: neuronal mechanisms for utility maximisation

ABSTRACT
Rewards induce learning (positive reinforcement), approach behaviour, economic decisions and positive emotions and mental states (pleasure, desire). We investigate basic neuronal reward signals during learning and decision-making, using behavioural and neurophysiological methods. We use specific behavioural tools to establish formal economic utility functions that constitute mathematical representations of behavioural preferences and predict the animal's choices. We find that the dopamine reward prediction error (RPE) signal codes economic utility, which may explain the maximisation of utility required for evolutionary beneficial behaviour. RPEs have specific valences whereby they act in specific directions; a positive RPE increases, and a negative RPE reduces, the frequency of actions that led to that RPE. Given that electrical and optogenetic activation of dopamine neurones mimicks positive RPE, decision makers would seek situations leading to positive RPEs and avoid negative RPEs, thus increasing the rewards they are getting. Such an ever-increasing reward profile would amount to utility maximisation.

THE SPEAKER
Wolfram Schultz
Department of Physiology
Development & Neuroscience
University of Cambridge, UK
www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/staff/schultz

Arrangement, Sundhed og sygdom, Videnskabelig medarbejder, Neurocampus, Neurocampus, Ph.d.-studerende, Forskningsårsstuderende, Udvekslingsstuderende, Kommende studerende