Research Interests
I am interested in higher level perceptual and learning processes, and how these shape decision-making and behaviour. In particular, I try to understand how individual variability in such processes may contribute to seemingly irrational choices that may have health-harming consequences. This is relevant not just to an array of mental disorders but also to over-consumption and obesity. I think that it is very important that we do not consider the brain in isolation from either the body or from its external environment and that the study of high level cognitive processes must be shaped by close consideration of underlying metabolic and endocrine signals. This work benefits from collaboration with Professors Steve O’Rahilly, Sadaf Farooqi, Fiona Gribble and Frank Reimann.
In addition, the study of fundamental reward-related processes in the human brain benefits from close links with basic neuroscientists in the departments of psychiatry, psychology and clinical neuroscience.
My work has focused on how combined functional neuroimaging, behavioural and pharmacological studies can elucidate brain processes involved in responding to environmental stimuli and determining food choice. Pharmacological perturbations , for example with dopamine agonists and antagonists, can be used to explore the neurotransmitter basis for these processes and ensuing measures of food-related behaviours are set up to determine the relevance of these lab and imaging-based measures to real-world choice and consumption. These studies have formed the basis for targeted assessment of brain structural changes associated with obesity.
The overall aim, through systematic exploration of these processes, is to understand choice and behaviour in detail and to determine the basis for marked variability in susceptibility to internally- and environmentally-driven consumption. Through this understanding, a fuller comprehension of the multiple factors contributing to obesity will be possible.
Research Funding
The Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund
