Sijia Zhao

I am a postdoc with Prof Masud Husain, investigating the mechanisms underlying motivation and apathy in both health and diseases.

In general, I am interested how the human brain constructs a model of the environment to effectively adapt in an ever-changing world and evaluate how much effort to exert. Before joining Oxford, I did my undergraduate in Neuroscience, Master’s in Computer Science and PhD in Auditory Neuroscience, all at University College London. My past research focused on the role of the neuromodulator noradrenaline in tracking the statistics of our surroundings. I specialise in EEG, pupillometry and microsaccade, and I am also experienced with running human behavioural experiments online.

Now, I am expanding my research to dopamine and examine a neurocomputational account of motivation and effort in various populations.