Specific neural circuits and neuromodulation underlying real-time cost-benefit decision making

Ritwik will investigate the neural circuits and neurochemicals underlying decisions about when and how fast to take actions. Such decisions occur in real time and incur time-sensitive costs and benefits. Ritwik will seek to understand the precise cost-benefit computations the neuromodulators dopamine and serotonin perform, and how these control behaviour. He will use a novel approach, employing a powerful combination of temporally precise and spatially specific experimental techniques – electrophysiology, optogenetics (with Dr Jeremiah Cohen, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) and fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (with Dr Mark Walton, University of Oxford) – guided by sophisticated real-time theoretical modelling (with Professor Nathaniel Daw, New York University).