John P. O'Doherty
Fletcher Jones Professor of Decision Neuroscience
B.A., University of Dublin, Trinity College, 1996; D.Phil., University of Oxford, 2000. Assistant Professor, Caltech, 2004-07; Associate Professor, 2007-09; Professor, 2009-; Fletcher Jones Professor, 2021-; Director, Caltech Brain Imaging Center, 2013-17.
Profile
John P. O'Doherty studies the neural basis of reward-related learning and decision making, complex computational problems that have come to be solved by the brain over the course of evolution. He's interested in how the human brain can learn from experience in order to make decisions that maximize future rewards and minimize future costs.
Research Summary
Neural Basis of Reward and Reward-Related Learning; Neuroimaging; Conditioning and Associative Learning; Taste and Olfaction; Affective Neuroscience
Caltech Affiliations
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How Different Learning Modes May Explain Problem Gambling
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An overreliance on slow as opposed to fast learning may explain why problem gamblers will persist with losing strategies well after recreational gamblers have given up.
When Does the Brain Process Reward and Risk?
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Deep brain electrical activity demonstrates that human beings first estimate reward and then use that estimation to evaluate the risk involved when making an economic decision.
Caltech's New Center for Science, Society, and Public Policy Hosts Research Conference on Conspiratorial Thinking
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October 10, 2023
A two-day workshop at Caltech featured an international group of speakers bringing different disciplinary methods to the study of conspiratorial thinking.