Imaging Evidence from Patients and ControlsDr Paul Fletcher Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK
Research Interests
I am interested in how the brain learns about associations in the environment. Many of our behaviours are governed by how we learn about and respond to environmental stimuli, particularly with regard to the capacity of those stimuli for predicting pleasant or aversive outcomes. These behaviours can become so automatic and stimulus-driven that they persist even when the outcomes are no longer consciously desirable or when we would prefer not to attain them. Understanding how the behaviours emerge requires an understanding of how we learn to associate stimuli with outcomes as well as how underlying motivational states might modify this. From this understanding, perhaps we might be able to develope ideas about the aberrant processes that lead to changes in such behaviours as would be the case in, for example, certain mental illnesses, addictions and health-harming behaviour more generally.I use functional neuroimaging, pharmacological manipulations and behavioural studies to try to develope this understanding.
