Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Location: 46-3002 (Singleton Auditorium)

Speaker: Michael J Frank, Ph.D.

Affiliation: Edgar L Marston Professor of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences; Professor of Brain Science; Director Carney Center for Computational Brain Science, Brown University

Host: Dr. Ann Graybiel

Talk title: From Descriptive to Normative Accounts of Frontostriatal Control 

Abstract: The basal ganglia and dopaminergic (DA) systems are well studied for their roles in reinforcement learning, but the underlying architecture is notoriously complex. First, I will present a computational account of how this complexity is optimized to provide robust advantages over traditional reinforcement learning models over a range of environments,  and suggest that empirical observations of altered learning and decision making in patient populations reflect a byproduct of an otherwise normative mechanism.  Second, I will show how this system, when interacting with prefrontal cortex, can learn to influence cognitive actions such as working memory updating and "chunking" strategies that are adapted as function of task demands, mimicking human performance and normative models.