Reward and uncertainty in the prefrontal cortex
Description
Uncertainty in the environment affects many aspects of decision making and hence its underlying neural mechanisms. For example, reward from recent actions has a greater effect on subsequent behaviors when the environment is uncertain. In our experiments, we found that uncertainty strengthens neural signals related to reward and choice history in the prefrontal cortex during a probabilistic reversal learning task. The results also suggest that the lateral prefrontal cortex might contribute to resolving the curse of dimensionality during reinforcement learning by selectively amplifying task-relevant signals.
Speaker Bio
Daeyeol Lee is Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of neuroscience and a Professor of Psychology and of Psychiatry at Yale University. Dr. Lee received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Seoul National University in Korea and his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He then received a postdoctoral training in neurophysiology at the University of Minnesota. His current research focuses on the brain mechanisms of decision making, in particular the role of the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia in reinforcement learning and economic choices. His laboratory also investigates how timing and numerical information is represented and transformed in the brain. His research employs diverse methods developed in economics, psychology, and neuroscience. He is also an expert in statistical modeling of behavioral and neurophysiological data. He has published over 90 original research articles. He was the recipient of the Fellowship for Prominent Collegians from Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies, University Fellowship from the University of Illinois, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Neuroscience Grant. His research has been funded by the National Institute of Health continuously since 1999.