The neurobiology of motivation in health and disease

Professor Dolan's goal is to understand motivation in terms of the computational processes being undertaken by neural circuits in the brain. He will study this by using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques, in combination with computational models. He aims to determine how motivation impacts on behaviour, addressing how such processes may be altered when the brain is in a psychiatric state (e.g. in clinical depression). Ultimately he hopes to use his findings to refine psychiatric disorder classifications, which will help provide more focused targets for future investigations and for potential treatment options.