New paper in PNAS

A new study on links between local and global metacognition led by Marion Rouault has been published in PNAS. Marion built on a previous paradigm she developed while a postdoc in the MetaLab, examining links between local confidence in individual decisions and “global” self-performance estimates (SPEs) over longer timescales. In conjunction with brain imaging, Marion has now shown that interactions between local and global confidence estimates are observed in ventromedial PFC and precuneus, whereas ventral striatal activity tracks global SPEs independently of local confidence. These results provide initial evidence that confidence signals are tracked across multiple hierarchical levels in the human brain.

Congratulations Marion!

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New paper in Neuron

A new study published in Neuron and led by MetaLab postdoc Dan Bang in collaboration with Ken Kishida (Wake Forest University) and Read Montague (Virginia Tech) has revealed novel neuromodulator contributions to perceptual decision-making in humans. Dan combined a perceptual decision-making task with a rare opportunity to study neuromodulator fluctuations in patients undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. A novel method called “fast scan cyclic voltammetry” allows for the real-time measurement of neuromodulators such as dopamine and serotonin. In one part of the striatum (caudate nucleus), Dan found that serotonin levels rapidly increased when perceptual uncertainty was high. In another part of the striatum (putamen), both dopamine and serotonin were found to trigger the action that indicated a patient’s decision.

In our previous work using this task together with brain imaging, we focused on how different parts of cortex supports computations of sensory uncertainty and decision confidence. But brain imaging is normally blind to neuromodulator levels. Here, by collaborating with the fantastic teams at Virginia Tech and Wake Forest, we have now gotten a unique insight into how these neurochemicals contribute to the decision process.

More details about the study can be found in this news article on the WCHN website.

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Congratulations to Dr. Nadine Dijkstra!

Congratulations to Nadine who recently defended her PhD entitled “Envisioning imagination: neural overlap between visual imagery and perception” at the Donders Center for Cognition. The viva in the Netherlands is full of ceremony that we are sadly denied here in the UK, as the picture below indicates. The award was made with a cum laude distinction, which is a fantastic achievement - well done!

If you are interested in reading more, Nadine’s thesis can be downloaded here.

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Dr. Max Rollwage!

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Congratulations to Max who successfully defended his PhD, making him the first PhD graduate from the MetaLab! Thank you also to Tali Sharot and Redmond O’Connell for being superb examiners. We sadly could not convene for an official post-viva celebration in person but got by with a combination of Zoom and socially distanced beers at the Queens Larder!

New paper published in eLife

Dan Bang’s paper entitled “Private-public mappings in human prefrontal cortex” has been published recently in eLife. Dan used confidence estimation as a model system to ask how private (“what I feel”) and public (“what I say”) aspects of mental states are separately encoded, and how different subregions of prefrontal cortex may control these private-public mappings. We think that this process is important for flexible social behaviour, and a Twitter thread summarising our findings is below. This is the first paper from Dan’s Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship focusing on the neurobiological basis of social behaviour. Congratulations Dan!

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Max Rollwage receives Jon Driver Prize

MetaLab and Max Planck Centre PhD student Max Rollwage has been awarded one of the 2020 Jon Driver Prizes, awarded to outstanding young neuroscientists at UCL. He was given the award at the UCL Neuroscience Symposium held last week. Many congratulations to Max!

Jon Driver (1962 - 2011) was a highly influential cognitive neuroscientist whose work had a major impact world-wide, and who played a leading role in the neuroscience community at UCL. This award is particularly poignant as Steve, Max’s PhD supervisor, was mentored by Jon when he himself was a PhD student. Jon was also a great friend of Ray Dolan, Max’s second supervisor. Many of these personal memories are collected here: http://jondriver1962-2011.blogspot.com/

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New paper published in Nature Communications

Max Rollwage’s paper entitled “Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias” has been published recently in Nature Communications. Max quantified how confidence in a decision alters MEG signatures of subsequent evidence accumulation, and how such alterations might underpin a confirmation bias in decision-making. A Twitter thread summarising our findings is below, and UCL’s press release can be found here. Congratulations Max!

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New paper published in eLife

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Matan Mazor’s paper entitled “Distinct neural contributions for detecting, but not discriminating, visual stimuli” has been published in eLife - congratulations Matan!

A Twitter thread explaining the key findings can be found below:

MetaLab contributions to the Dear World Project

Andrew, Elisa and Steve have been involved with the Dear World Project, a cross-disciplinary public engagement collaboration that pairs artists and scientists to explore mental health. Their artwork, created by Nicole Morris, Tom Berry and Cathryn Shilling, was displayed in an exhibition as part of a wider collaboration with the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and Max Plank Centre for Computational Psychiatry.

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Goodbye and good luck to Marion!

We are sad to say goodbye to Marion Rouault who is leaving the lab to take up a new position at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Marion was one of the founding members of the MetaLab, and had a fantastically productive few years here in London - we will greatly miss having her around, and wish her all the best for her next steps!

We had a lab picnic on a lovely spring evening on Primrose Hill to give Marion a fitting send off:

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New paper on cognitive offloading published in Cognition

Xiao’s paper on a role for metacognition in cognitive offloading to the environment has now been published in Cognition. A Twitter thread summarising the findings can be found here:

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