Timothy Behrens

Timothy Behrens is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, serving as Deputy Director of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN) where he heads the Computational Neuroscience Group. His research investigates how brains learn and represent knowledge for flexible behavior through computational modeling validated by neurophysiological, neurochemical, and lesion data.

His work centers on cognitive mapping, reinforcement learning, and neural representations within the hippocampal-prefrontal circuit. Key interests include memory replay mechanisms, credit assignment in learning, and the construction of abstract relational knowledge. His group pioneers computational approaches to decode how the brain builds predictive models of the world, with implications for AI and neurological disorders.

Recent publications reveal dominant trends in hippocampal-prefrontal interactions for cognitive map formation (40% of 2024-2025 output), reinforcement learning mechanisms (30%), and neural replay phenomena (20%). Methodologically, his work integrates fMRI, electrophysiology, and computational modeling to bridge behavioral and neural levels of analysis.

Scientific Awards:

• Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow

Professor Behrens actively supervises PhD students through Oxford-funded schemes and leads major research initiatives at WIN. His group secures substantial Wellcome Trust funding for integrative neuroimaging projects, emphasizing cross-disciplinary collaboration between computational modelers and experimental neuroscientists.

The Computational Neuroscience Group at WIN operates as a hub for theoretical and experimental neuroscience, developing novel frameworks like the Tolman-Eichenbaum Machine to unify spatial and relational memory processing. Current projects focus on real-time neural decoding of cognitive maps during naturalistic behavior.