معرفی
Professor Mark Walton is a Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology, and Trustee for Preclinical Neuroscience at the British Neuroscience Association. He leads the Walton Lab, established in 2010, which investigates neurochemical mechanisms underlying motivation and decision-making, focusing on dopamine’s role in rodents. His work combines behavioral ecology, neuroeconomics, and cutting-edge techniques like fiber photometry and optogenetics to study cortical-basal ganglia circuits.
Education: BA, MSc, DPhil (institutions unspecified). Research interests include neurochemical regulation of decision-making, motivational processes, and neuropsychiatric disorders. His lab employs multidisciplinary approaches, integrating behavioral tasks with advanced neurophysiological methods to probe brain-behavior relationships.
Recent work highlights dopamine’s role in action initiation and reward valuation, with publications in Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and Molecular Psychiatry. Collaborations include the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging and external institutions like Cardiff University and the ICM in Paris. Funded by Wellcome Trust, MRC, and BBSRC.
Advising: Supervises DPhil candidates Adam Harris and Merima Sabanovic. Grants focus on translational neuroscience and decision-making under uncertainty. Lab teams include postdocs and technical staff, emphasizing interdisciplinary training.
Labs and teams: Walton Lab (primary), Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (affiliated). Research themes include contextual modulation of value, cost-benefit analysis, and motivational learning.
