Motivation & Social Neuroscience (MSN) lab

The MSN Lab of @brain_apps, @TheCHBH @UoB_SoP. Using cognitive, computational and biological methods to understand human motivation.

[Motivation & Social Neuroscience (MSN) lab @MSNlab]

New paper out now! Human decisions of when to leave a social interaction depend on the quality (or opportunity cost) of the social environment. We stay longer even when treated unfairly in unfair environments. Led by @AnthonyGabay

[Communications Psychology @CommsPsychol]

Across four experiments, participants chose to spend more time with partners who made fair offers; likewise, a poor social environment and low opportunity-costs led participants to stay with partners.
@AnthonyGabay
@AndreaPisauro
@katieoneuro
@brain_apps
https://t.co/AtP2TJOrB1

[L. Sebastian Contreras-Huerta @lsebastian_ch]

💥I'm thrilled to announce that our paper "A reward self-bias leads to more optimal foraging for ourselves than others" is now published in Scientific Reports! 🧵Curious how self-bias shapes dynamic decision-making? Read it here: https://t.co/tVGw7uJFI4

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

This month also saw the start of my @ERC_Research (funded through @UKRI_News) Consolidator Grant - Effdox. Over the next 5 years we will be taking a multimodal approach to uncover the mechanisms that allow the brain to switch between avoiding effort, to valuing and seeking it.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

A significant few weeks for my @MSNlab. Last month saw the end of 8 years of sustained support from the @BBSRC first from a Future Leader fellowship then a David Phillips Fellowship. This has been transformative for me scientifically and personally. Having such long-standing 1/

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

The last tutorial of the summer school, from the fantastic @lei_zhang_lz, on bayesian hierarchical modelling

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

The final day and we have a fantastic historical account of how theories from economics and psychology can inform our understanding of reward from the great Wolfram Schultz.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

@ChristianCRuff Post lunch, we have @froemero1 with a tutorial on sequential sampling models.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Now for our second keynote session from @ChristianCRuff on "Assessing Mentalization"

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Next up @arkadykonovalov presenting classic behavioural economics work on strategic social interactions.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

@thepsychologist @DrJoCutler Good morning. After the very English BBQ last night, we start today with @ALosecaatV talking about modelling social dominance learning and testosterone.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

@thepsychologist Now for @DrJoCutler again doing a practical introduction to computational modelling.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

After my own talk, we now have @thepsychologist talking about prosocial leaning models.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Next up our first keynote talk by @CeliaHeyes on cognitive gadgets.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

@unibirmingham First up the fantastic @wellcometrust Early Career Fellow @DrJoCutler walking us through the different steps you need to take when using computational modelling.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Exciting to have such a diverse set of attendees, who were selected from amongst nearly 200 applicants and we were able to do this thanks to @unibirmingham Global Engagement Fund. https://t.co/d5kT3JScML

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Today we (led by @thepsychologist) kick off the Birmingham-Leiden Computational Social Cognition Summer School @TheCHBH / @UoB_SoP. 70+ students from across the globe will learn how and why to use Computational modelling in Psychological and Neuroscience research.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Yesterday these lovely people from @MSNlab started our first psychopharmacology study @TheCHBH / @UoB_SoP looking at the effects if dopaminergic medication on thr computational mechanisms of effort and reward. Exciting new step for the lab.

[Nikita Mehta @nikitamehta22]

Read our blog, ‘How Do We Decide to Leave a Social Interaction?’ by @brain_apps and me on a recent paper by Gabay et al. (2024).
Special thanks to @AnthonyGabay, @thepsychologist, and @DrJoCutler.

https://t.co/JbGp421Xch

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Nice to play a part in this important study showing that lesions to ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the human brain impair the willingness to exert effort for others. Led by @DrJoCutler, @thepsychologist from @TheCHBH & @BrainInTheMind.

[Prof. Matthew Apps @brain_apps]

Brain lactate and other metabolites can be measured with functional MRS at 3T! Great work led by @martinw3141 @TheCHBH.