Ben Hayden

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Credentials

PhD

Bio

Ben Hayden is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research. His lab studies the role of the brain activity in making reward-based decisions, and in changing strategies in demanding circumstances. They do this with recordings of activity of populations of neurons in subjects making and adjusting simple decisions. They then compare these patterns with those obtained from subjects exposed to cocaine for long periods of times. This research contributes to a basic understanding of the brain circuitry of drug addiction.

Research Summary

I am interested in understanding the neural mechanisms by which our brains make and control our choices. I have a particular interest in understanding self-control, learning, and decision-making. My research is closely inspired by foraging theory and by behavioral ecology more generally. As such a major focus of the lab's methods development comes in making our task environments ever more naturalistic. The lab uses single unit recordings in rhesus macaques performing computerized and freely moving tasks and records in reward regions. We are especially interested in the cingulate cortex (dorsal anterior and posterior, dACC and PCC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and the striatum. At UMN, my lab and I have begun working to understand expand our understanding of these regions and processes by incorporating measures of hemodynamic response.