Cognitive & Behavioural Neuroscience Seminar: Action-selection under threat: algorithms and neural circuits for survival
Professor Dominik Bach (University of Zurich & UCL)
Cognitive & Behavioural Neuroscience Seminar Series
Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 1pm to 2pm
Schlich Theatre, Department of Plants Sciences, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB
Hosted by Dr Nils Kolling
Abstract
Behaving appropriately under threat is key to survival. In my talk, I will provide a decision-theoretic view on this action selection problem and ask, what are computational algorithms and neural controllers that underlie this behavior. Non-human animal data tentatively suggest a specific architecture that relies on tailored algorithms for specific threat scenarios. To make this plausible in humans, I build on fear-conditioning paradigms, as well as on a translation of approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), a classical rodent anxiety model, to human computer games. I will analyze possible cognitive-computational algorithms for behavioral control and learning in these tasks, and their neural implementation.