Joni D Wallis
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Neuroscience
Compulsive behavior is part of many conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders and obesity. Decisions often pit fast, automatic habits against slower, deliberate choices aimed at a goal.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Psychology
- Topics
decision-making
orbitofrontal cortex
caudate nucleus
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Test whether the orbitofrontal cortex suppresses habitual responses in the caudate nucleus when deliberate choice is needed, using a task with conflicting reward rules that changes decision time and eye movements.
- Record many neurons at once in the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate nucleus with primate Neuropixels probes, and use population decoding to track decision dynamics trial by trial.
- Test whether the orbitofrontal cortex inhibits the caudate nucleus through synchronized alpha-band brain rhythms, using closed-loop microstimulation timed to ongoing activity.
More about the research
Compulsions may arise when the brain's higher-level control over habits fails. This control appears to involve two connected brain regions. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a frontal area tied to evaluating rewards. The caudate nucleus (CN) is part of the striatum, a deep structure involved in learning and habits. This project asks how these regions interact when a deliberate choice has to override a habit.
Why it matters
Malfunction of the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate nucleus is implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction and other conditions marked by compulsive behavior. Learning how this circuit lets deliberate choices override habits could inform future treatments. It could also guide the design of devices that interact with these brain circuits.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tirin Moore
Stanford University, CA·Neuroscience
Identify which lateral prefrontal neuron subpopulations control attention by recording with Neuropixels probes in the frontal eye field and area 46 of monkeys and using real-time decoders to trigger stimulus perturbations.
Scott Wilke
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
Record how anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) neurons and ACC-to-nucleus accumbens projection neurons represent effort-related costs and benefits during choices, using miniature head-mounted microscopes in freely behaving animals.
Daniel Foster
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Neuroscience
Test whether M4 PAMs, drugs that boost the M4 acetylcholine receptor, reduce repetitive over-grooming in SAPAP3 knockout mice and other mouse models of repetitive behavior.
The school
University of California-Berkeley: 46 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 825 research doctorates a year.
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