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Welcome to NeuroCoE at Columbia University

This Air Force Center of Excellence in the Neuroscience of Decision-Making (NeuroCoE) at Columbia University is funded by Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

The NeuroCoE, led by Biomedical Engineering Professor Paul Sajda, will take a multidisciplinary, multimodal, and multiscale approach to develop a comprehensive understanding of human decision making in real-world environments. Central to this approach is the design, development, and execution of experiments that enable linkage between decision making in animal models with data and tasks performed by humans.

Research Objectives of the Center

• Characterize neural correlates of decision making under “open-loop” conditions in humans and rodents. Focus on three specific “dimensions” of decision making, specifically priors/bias, confidence and expertise/learning.
• Use perturbations and stressors to manipulate decision making in humans and rodents and relate changes in neural correlates, as a function of the perturbation, between the two species. Perturbations (stressors) we will investigate include value-based, time urgency, and physiologically induced.
• Develop interventions and “closed-loop” control to mitigate effects of perturbation and stressors in a way as to optimize decision making. Interventions we will investigate include neurostimulation, neurofeedback and intervention via autonomy.

Multidisciplinary Team

The  NeruoCoE brings together an internationally recognized team of neural engineers, neuroscientists, biomedical engineers, and computer scientists to tackle core questions of how our brain makes decisions, learns from its mistakes, and develops expertise. The co-PIs at Columbia include Columbia Engineering Professors Qi Wang (Biomedical Engineering), Steven Feiner (Computer Science), Michael Shadlen and Daniel Wolpert, both professors of neuroscience at the Zuckerman Institute for Mind, Brain, and Behavior.