Armin Lak
Associate Professor of Neuroscience
- Wellcome Trust Henry Dale Fellow
- St John's College Fellow
I completed my PhD in neuroscience at Cambridge University with Wolfram Schultz, investigating the roles of midbrain dopamine neurons in economic decision making. As a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow, I worked with Matteo Carandini, Kenneth Harris and Adam Kepecs at UCL (London) and CSHL (NY). I combined neuronal circuit tools with novel behavioural and computational methods that I developed to investigate the roles that frontal cortex and dopamine neurons play in perceptual and economic decisions.
My group aims to gain a quantitative circuit-level understanding of neuronal mechanisms that subserve learning and decision making. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach including high-count electrophysiology, cell type-specific calcium imaging, optogenetic manipulations, highly-controlled behavioural tasks in mice, and computational modelling.
Colleges
Research groups
Key publications
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Temporal regularities shape perceptual decisions and striatal dopamine signals.
Journal article
Fritsche M. et al, (2024), Nat Commun, 15
Recent publications
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An orexin-sensitive subpopulation of layer 6 neurons regulates cortical excitability and anxiety behaviour.
Journal article
Messore F. et al, (2025), Transl Psychiatry, 15
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An axonal brake on striatal dopamine output by cholinergic interneurons
Journal article
Zhang Y-F. et al, (2025), Nature Neuroscience
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Policy complexity suppresses dopamine responses.
Journal article
Gershman SJ. and Lak A., (2025), J Neurosci
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Reward Bases: A simple mechanism for adaptive acquisition of multiple reward types.
Journal article
Millidge B. et al, (2024), PLoS Comput Biol, 20
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Dopaminergic computations for perceptual decisions
Journal article
Liebana S. et al, (2024), Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences