A computational and neural model for mood dynamics - BMMLAB Guest Seminar

BMMLAB presents a Special Guest Seminar by Dr Robb Rutledge (UCL) at 1pm on Monday 13 May.

Robb is visiting the Lab from the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, UCL, from 9 until 16 May. He has a background in neuroscience of decision-making and currently focuses on happiness and how emotional state influences decisions.

A computational and neural model for mood dynamics

1pm, Monday 13 May, The Ian Potter Auditorium of the Melbourne Brain Centre (Kenneth Myer Building, 30 Royal Parade Parkville).

The subjective well-being or happiness of individuals is an important metric for societies, but we know little about how the cumulative influence of daily life events are aggregated into subjective feelings. Using computational modelling, I show that momentary happiness in a decision-making task is explained not by task earnings, but by the combined influence of past rewards and expectations. The robustness of this account was evident in a large-scale smartphone-based replication (N=18,420). I use a combination of neuroimaging and pharmacology to investigate the neural basis of mood dynamics, finding that it relates to dopamine. I then show that this computational approach can be used to investigate the link between mood and behaviour and the dynamics of mood in psychiatric disorders including major depression and bipolar disorder.

The talk will be live-streamed at https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/566545579.

RobbRutledge

www.robbrutledge.com

www.rutledgelab.org

More Information

Elizabeth Bowman