Modelling Basal-Ganglia contributions to motivational impairments in Parkinson's Disease

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Parkinson's Disease is typically characterized as a movement disorder caused by a depletion in dopamine in the brain. Alongside movement problems, patients often suffer from severe and debilitating impairments to their levels of motivation, such as apathy and fatigue. However, compared to the motor symptoms, the mechanisms underlying motivation impairments in PD are poorly understood. This project aims to better understand how dysfunction in different parts of the dopamine system underlies different types of motivation impairments, by combining together the tools computational and neuropsychopharmacology. The project will involve six months learning computational models of the brains dopamine systems in Nottingham under the supervision of Prof. Mark Humphries. The remainder of the PhD will be spent at the University of Birmingham in the Motivation and Social Neuroscience (www.MSN-lab.com) lab of Dr. Apps aswell as under the supervision of Dr. Ned Jenkinson, conducting experiments that test predictions from computational models using psychopharmacological experiments in healthy adults, and testing in patients with Parkinson's Disease. This project will give students a broad training in computational neuroscience, programming and experimental methods, allowing them to develop expertise in the growing field of Computational Neurology.