Neurochemistry, Action and Control
- +44 (0)1865 271 361 (fax +44 (0)1865 310 447)
- mark.walton@psy.ox.ac.uk
- http://www.waltonlab.org
Founded in 2010
Funded by the Wellcome Trust
First lab in the UK to establish fast-scan cyclic voltammetry during behaviour
Prof. Mark Walton
We are interested in the way in which our brains are able to integrate across these multiple different types of information in order to guide appropriate decisions. There is a particular focus on how different aspects of value are learned, represented and used to guide choice behaviour within frontal-temporal striatal-dopaminergic circuits. The long-term goal is to use the information gleaned about the function of these systems to better understand how the process of valuation and decision making goes awry in neuropsychiatric disorders.
The laboratory uses a range of recording and interference techniques to address these questions, including fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, targeted lesions, neuropharmacological manipulations, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In particular, we are keen to use combinations of techniques in order to probe communication between brain regions and causal interactions within these networks. Our behavioural tasks are designed with an eye to ideas in disciplines such as behavioural ecology, animal learning theory and neuroeconomics as well as behavioural and cognitive neuroscience.
Our team
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Mark Walton
Wellcome Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience
Current Oxford Collaborators
- David Bannerman, Experimental Psychology
- Tim Behrens, FMRIB Centre
- Peter Brown, Clinical Neurology
- Stephanie Cragg & Katie Jennings, DPAG
- Peter Magill, MRC Neuroanatomical Pharmacology Unit
- Anna Mitchell, Experimental Psychology
- Matthew Rushworth, Experimental Psychology
- Jerome Sallet, Experimental Psychology
- Elizabeth Tunbridge, Department of Psychiatry
Fast-scan cyclic voltammetry set-up
External Collaborators
- Sebastien Bouret, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle epiniere, ICM, Paris, France
- Peter Dayan, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL, London
- Gary Gilmour, Eli Lilly, U.K.
- Steve Kennerley, Institute of Neurology, UCL, London
- Yael Niv, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, USA
- Giovanni Pezzulo, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Rome, Italy
- Paul Phillips, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA