People

Ben Slater

Ben is a PhD student funded by BBSRC DTP in joint partnership with Durham University (jointly supervised by Prof Chris Petkov, University of Iowa, Dr Alex Easton, Durham University and Dr Yuki Kikuchi, Newcastle University). The aim of Ben's PhD is to understand how the brain learns and makes decisions under different contextual situations (PhD title: Causal Neural Mechanisms for Decision Making: Putting Rules into Context). 

Ben has a strong interest in the neurobiology of behaviour and has developed a paradigm that can be analogously used across several species, including rats, marmosets, macaques, and humans. Ben has experience in working with all four species and is currently exploring the role of prefrontal-hippocampal connectivity via the use of an innovative technique known as transcranial ultrasound stimulation. The long-term aim is to explore the evolutionary origins and the dependence of the hippocampus and frontal systems on context-dependent decision making across species. This knowledge is highly relevant for humans with frontal or hippocampal cognitive impairment and may also enhance medical understanding concerning disorders that involve maladaptation of memory and cognition.

References:

Slater B et al. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation of primate hippocampus and prefrontal cortex modulates context-guided sequence learning. 406.01, Society for Neuroscience 2022. San Diego, CA.

Partnership: BRAINBOX

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