Month: March 2022

Jessica Hamilton
Department of Psychology
Rutgers University

Rates of depression and suicide among adolescents have increased in the past 10 years, and suicide is now the second leading cause of death among individuals aged 10-24. To address this major public health problem, Dr. Jessica Hamilton’s program of research focuses on identifying and modifying developmentally-informed risk and protective factors for youth suicide, particularly aimed at reducing disparities in suicide. Specifically, Dr. Hamilton will describe her research examining sleep and social media as both potential risk factors and opportunities for prevention, and how her research harnesses advancing technology to better understand and prevent adolescent suicide risk.

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Travis Baker
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience
Rutgers University

In this talk, I will present two recent studies using TMS to manipulate electrophysiological and computational correlates of decision-making, and augmented reality (AR) to manipulate real-world environments in real-time during goal-directed navigation. Because TMS offers a powerful tool for investigating causal brain-behavior relations, and AR can alter one’s ongoing perception of the real-world, such experimental applications, when paired with computational modeling, may help reconcile or dispute theories and models of decision-making, help increase the ecological validity of human decision-making studies, and advance our understanding and treatment of mental disorders, with a special focus on addictions.

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Candace Raio
Department of Psychiatry
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
New York University

The ability to effectively deploy goal-directed control during learning and decision-making is essential for adaptive behavior but is often compromised under stress. Using experimental paradigms that draw upon learning models and behavioral economics, I will present research that examines how stress changes the use of goal-directed control strategies and suggest that these changes may stem from the increased cognitive cost of exercising control. Further, I will show that the subjective cost of control can be measured using a novel economic decision-making approach and that these costs are highly sensitive to changes in affective state. Finally, I will argue that stress can also confer adaptive benefits for survival and demonstrate how this may emerge in decision contexts marked by uncertainty.

View a recording of this session here.