OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
The neuromodulator dopamine is believed to play multiple roles in decision making, but the neurocomputational basis of dopamine’s influence on behavior remains unclear. Through a combination of fMRI, pharmacology, and smartphone-based experiments in the general population and in Parkinson’s disease, we find evidence that dopamine is associated with increased risk taking in a manner that does not depend on value. Surprising sounds are associated with dopamine release, and we find that surprising sounds increase risk taking in a manner that does not depend on value. Dopamine is also believed to influence willingness to exert effort. We introduce a new task to study the vigor with which actions are taken to obtain reward and the relationship between vigor and mood. We use a combination of lab, online, and smartphone-based experiments to quantify the relationship between reward, mood, and vigor across the lifespan.
