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Nicholas irving
Congratulations to Professor Timothy Behrens, who has been elected a new Fellow of the Royal Society.
It’s a complete surprise that I have been elected to the Royal Society, but a really lovely one. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped make it happen. I have just been incredibly lucky. The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging and the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences have been amazing places to build a career in neuroscience, and there are many people here who deserve to be elected before me! - Professor Timothy Behrens
Tim's work has uncovered mechanisms used by the human brain to represent our world, make decisions, and control our behaviour. An understanding of how our neurons function in networks to control behaviour is fundamental to our understanding of the brain, and has implications for neural network computing, artificial intelligence, and the treatment of mental and cognitive disorders.
His research group has two main research interests.The computational anatomy group studies the organisation of anatomical brain connections and how they relate to regional brain function. We principally use non-invasive diffusion MRI, often in combination with functional techniques or traditional tracing techniques. We also have a strong methodological focus.
The learning and decision making group mostly investigates the role of frontal cortical mechanisms in controlling behaviour. We use computational descriptions at the behavioural and network levels to form predictions, and test these in neurophysiological, neurochemical, and lesion data.