Publications related to Neural Correlates of Value, Risk, and Risk Aversion Contributing to Decision Making under Risk

Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills

Elena Beanato, Esra Neufeld, Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Takuya Morishita, Maximilian Jonas Wessel, Traian Popa, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis, Julie Duqué, Fabienne Windel

Reinforcement feedback can improve motor learning, but the underlying brain mechanisms remain underexplored. In particular, the causal contribution of specific patterns of oscillatory activity within the human striatum is unknown. To address this question, ...

Nature Portfolio2024

White adipose tissue distribution and amount are associated with increased white matter connectivity

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Elda Fischi Gomez, Gabriel Girard, Philipp Johannes Koch, Liana Okudzhava

Obesity represents a significant public health concern and is linked to various comorbidities and cognitive impairments. Previous research indicates that elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with structural changes in white matter (WM). However, a ...

Wiley2024

Unveiling the complexity of learning and decision-making

Wei-Hsiang Lin

Reinforcement learning (RL) is crucial for learning to adapt to new environments. In RL, the prediction error is an important component that compares the expected and actual rewards. Dopamine plays a critical role in encoding these prediction errors. In my ...

EPFL2024

Seeking the new, learning from the unexpected: Computational models of surprise and novelty in the brain

Alireza Modirshanechi

Human babies have a natural desire to interact with new toys and objects, through which they learn how the world around them works, e.g., that glass shatters when dropped, but a rubber ball does not. When their predictions are proven incorrect, such as whe ...

EPFL2024

Neurobiological and metabolic basis of motivation and effort-based decision-making - A human 1H-MRS, fMRI and machine learning study

Arthur Barakat

Motivation is a multifaceted phenomenon that we explore within the framework of decision-making. Through this cognitive process, actions are directed towards specific goals by performing a trade-off between the cost and benefit of an action. The dorsomedia ...

EPFL2024

Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings

Michael Eric Anthony Pereira, Olaf Blanke, Nathan Quentin Faivre, Fosco Bernasconi

Subcortical brain structures such as the basal ganglia or the thalamus are involved in regulating motor and cognitive behavior. However, their contribution to perceptual consciousness is still unclear, due to the inherent difficulties of recording subcorti ...

2024

Unraveling behavior and cortical signals to guide the development of soft neuroprostheses for auditory restoration and spreading depolarization

Emilie Cornelia Maria Revol

Neuroprostheses have been used clinically for decades, to help restore or preserve brain functions, when pharmaceutical treatments are inefficient. Although great progress in the field has been made over the years to interface with the nervous system, surf ...

EPFL2024

Quartiers rhodaniens en transition

Sara Sonia Formery Regazzoni

Over the course of history, the relationship between cities and their waters has shown different gradients of interweaving, marked by cycles of bonding and distancing. Following a period of complete neglect of urban watercourses, the versatile, multifacete ...

EPFL2024

Optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making

Mats Julius Stensrud, Aaron Leor Sarvet

We consider optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making. Such regimes are decision functions of measured pre-treatment variables and, by leveraging natural treatment values, enjoy a superoptimality property whereby they are guaranteed to o ...

2024

Using automated design appraisal to model building-specific devaluation risk due to land-use change

Adam Robert Swietek

Uncertainty of spillover effects – including property devaluation - from proposed land-use change elicits opposition to local development. This hinders cities’ ability to implement land-use policy aimed at housing affordability and environmental sustainabi ...

2024

Reliable data-driven decision-making through optimal transport

Bahar Taskesen

Decision-making permeates every aspect of human and societal development, from individuals' daily choices to the complex decisions made by communities and institutions. Central to effective decision-making is the discipline of optimization, which seeks th ...

EPFL2024

The interplay between white adipose tissue, adipokines, and structural gray matter changes

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Elda Fischi Gomez, Gabriel Girard, Liana Okudzhava

The growing global obesity issue emphasizes the importance of understanding its health implications. Previous research has identified consistent alterations in gray matter (GM) volume in connection with obesity. Given the various implications of distinct f ...

Wiley2024

A lunar reconnaissance drone for cooperative exploration and high-resolution mapping of extreme locations

Erik Uythoven, Thomas Pfeiffer, Daniel Tataru, David Rodriguez Martinez

An efficient characterization of scientifically significant locations is essential prior to the return of humans to the Moon. The highest resolution imagery acquired from orbit of south-polar shadowed regions and other relevant locations remains, at best, ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Impact of a mindfulness-based intervention on neurobehavioral functioning and its association with large-scale brain networks in preterm young adolescents

Dimitri Nestor Alice Van De Ville, Natalia Fernandez, Petra Susan Hüppi, Vanessa Siffredi

Aim: Adolescents born very preterm (VPT;

Wiley2024

Breaking Blockchain Rationality with Out-of-Band Collusion

Bryan Alexander Ford, Haoqian Zhang, Louis-Henri Manuel Jakob Merino, Verónica del Carmen Estrada Galiñanes, Mahsa Bastankhah

Blockchain systems often rely on rationality assumptions for their security, expecting that nodes are motivated to maximize their profits. These systems thus design their protocols to incentivize nodes to execute the honest protocol but fail to consider ou ...

Springer International Publishing Ag2024

Safety risk management in University laboratories

Anastasia Jung

Risk management has become an essential element in the functioning of modern society. Correct risk identification and assessment are undoubtedly crucial to improving overall safety; nevertheless, often, it is accompanied by the wrong selection of correctiv ...

EPFL2023

Contextual Stochastic Bilevel Optimization

Daniel Kuhn, Yifan Hu, Andreas Krause, Jie Wang

We introduce contextual stochastic bilevel optimization (CSBO) -- a stochastic bilevel optimization framework with the lower-level problem minimizing an expectation conditioned on some contextual information and the upper-level decision variable. This fram ...

2023

Plasticity of sensory representations in the posterior insular cortex during fear learning

Denys Osypenko

Aversively-motivated associative learning allows animals to avoid harm and thus ensures survival. Aversive learning can be studied by the fear learning paradigm, in which an innocuous sensory stimulus like a tone (conditioned stimulus, CS), acquires a nega ...

EPFL2023

Can one hear the shape of a target zone?

Max-Olivier Hongler

We develop an exchange rate target zone model with finite exit time and non-Gaussian tails. We show how the tails are a consequence of time-varying investor risk aversion, which generates mean-preserving spreads in the fundamental distribution. We solve ex ...

2023

A striatal circuit balances learned fear in the presence and absence of sensory cues

Ralf Schneggenburger, Olexiy Kochubey, Michael Kintscher

During fear learning, defensive behaviors like freezing need to be finely balanced in the presence or absence of threat-predicting cues (conditioned stimulus, CS). Nevertheless, the circuits underlying such balancing are largely unknown. Here, we investiga ...

eLIFE SCIENCES PUBL LTD2023