Erdem Pulcu

I obtained my doctoral degree from University of Manchester Medical School in 2014, studying social and value-based decision-making impairments in patients with major depressive disorder and their neurobiology. After my graduation, I have worked as a postdoctoral researcher in RIKEN Brain Sciences Institute (Tokyo) and Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet; Osaka) working on computational models of decision-making under uncertainty and in competitive, social interactive games.

I am interested in investigating models of reinforcement learning and social interactive decision-making in patients with depression and healthy volunteers undergoing pharmacological manipulation.

Follow the link below to a brief animation explaining the logic behind some of our ongoing research into major depression and negative biases

My other interests involve evolutionary models of human social behaviours. 

Pulcu E & Browning M (2025).Humans adapt rationally to the approximate estimates of uncertainty. eLife https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/103734

Pulcu E., Saunders KEA., Harmer CJ., Harrison PJ, Goodwin GM, Geddes JR, Browning M. (2022). Using a generative model of affect to characterize affective variability and its response to treatment in bipolar disorder. PNAS, 119 (28). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202983119

Murphy, D. A., Xie, J., Harmer, C. J., Browning, M., & Pulcu, E. (2022). Dynamic modulation of inequality aversion in human interpersonal negotiations. Communications Biology, 5(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03318-8

Pulcu E, Guinea C, Cowen PJ, Murphy SE, Harmer CJ (2021). A translational perspective on the anti-anhedonic effect of ketamine and its neural underpinnings. Molecular Psychiatry https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01183-1

Pulcu E and Browning M (2019). The Misestimation of Uncertainty in Affective Disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.07.007

Pulcu E, Shkreli L, Holst CH, Woud M, Craske M, Browning M, Reinecke A (2019). The effects of the angiotensin II receptor antagonist losartan on appetitive versus aversive learning. Biological Psychiatry. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.04.010

Pulcu E and Haruno M (2019). Value computations underlying human proposer behavior in the ultimatum game. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000621  

Pulcu E and Browning M (2017). Affective bias as a Rational response to the Statistics of Rewards and Punishments. eLife 2017; 6: e27879 doi:  10.7554/eLife.27879 

Pulcu E and Browning M (2017). Using Computational Psychiatry to Rule out the Hidden Causes of Depression. JAMA Psychiatry doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.1500 

Pulcu E and Elliott R (2015). Neural origins of psychosocial functioning impairments in Major Depression. The Lancet Psychiatry 2(9): 835-843 DOI: DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00237-0 

Pulcu E, Thomas EJ, Trotter,  McFarquhar, Juhasz, Sahakian, Deakin, Zahn, Anderson, Elliott R (2015). Social economical decision making in current and remitted major depression. Psychological Medicine DOI:10.1017/S0033291714002414 

Pulcu E, Zahn R, Moll, Trotter, Thomas, Juhasz, Deakin, Anderson, Sahakian, Elliott R (2014). Enhanced subgenual cingulate response to altruistic decisions in remitted major depressive disorder. Neuroimage:Clinical (4): 701-710. DOI:10.1016/j.nicl.2014.04.010

Pulcu E, Trotter P, Thomas, McFarquhar, Juhasz, Sahakian, Deakin, Zahn, Anderson, Elliott R (2014). Temporal discounting in major depressive disorder. Psychological Medicine 43 (12):1-10 DOI:10.1017/S0033291713002584