Striatal circuitry for reward learning and decision-making

External Event - 19th Oct 2021

Time: 2pm - 4pm (BST)

Online Event

Speaker: Ilana Witten

Professor Witten’s lab studies the neural circuits for reward learning and decision-making, with a focus on the role of dynamics and feedback in these cognitive processes. To study the underlying striatal circuit level mechanisms in the mesolimbic pathway, she combines a wide range of technical approaches, including optogenetics, rodent behaviour, electrophysiology, imaging and computational modelling.

She graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in physics in 2002, and received her Ph.D. in neurosciences from Eric Knudsen’s lab at Stanford University in 2008. She then stayed at Stanford to conduct her postdoctoral studies in the lab of Karl Deisseroth, where she focused on using optogenetic technologies to dissect genetically defined cell types within neural circuits. In 2012, she was recruited to Princeton University where she was recently promoted to full professor. Since 2017, her lab forms part of the International Brain Laboratory, a joint effort of 20 laboratories around the world aiming to combine their expertise to determine how the brain functions in a simple decision in a mouse.