Leah Somerville
Department of Psychology
Harvard University

 
Using value to guide goal directed behavior: Neurodevelopmental mechanisms & behavioral consequences
 

My lab’s research aims to reveal how neurodevelopmentally-mediated shifts in circuit-level brain function contribute to changes in motivated, emotional, and social behavior during adolescence. My talk will feature new work that reveals how the adolescent brain is uniquely “tuned” to particular suites of motivated cues, which impacts adolescents’ inhibitory control and decision making. Ultimately, the aims of this work are threefold: to bolster fundamental understanding of human neurodevelopment in the second decade of life, to inform relationships between circuit-level brain function and human behavioral outcomes more generally, and to gain insight into mechanisms of health risks that emerge during adolescence.
 

A pizza lunch will be served at 11:45am. The seminar will begin at 12:00pm.