Mr James Peak

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at UNSW investigating the neural bases of goal-directed action. When referring to actions as goal-directed, we are specifying actions that are voluntary, flexible actions for the purpose of attaining specific goals, and these actions are critical to adaptive behaviour. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the learning and performance of goal-directed actions is dependent on activity within neural circuitry involving the basal ganglia, which are a group of subcortical interconnected nuclei in the brain. One of these nuclei, the dorsomedial striatum, is required for both the learning and performance of goal-directed actions and we have suggested that it may play a critical role in translating learning signals into action performance. My research combines neuronal tract tracing and neural manipulations in rodents learning and performing goal-directed actions in an effort to understand the relative contributions of specific basal ganglia circuits in these behavioural processes.