Phil Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel

Striatal cholinergic interneurons boost dopamine release upon receiving a reward obtained after prolonged effort 🤩

This presynaptic boost would confer increased value on rewards obtained through effort, thus explaining the continuation of this effort to obtain more

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Taken together, indicates a critical role for VTA DA and GABA input in regulating punishment learning-related plasticity

Well done to the team! 💪
And big thanks to reviewers for their helpful suggestions 🙏

We found:
- VTA DA neurons + GABA inputs have dissociated responses to instrumental rewards vs punishers

- Blocking GABA-A inhibition or driving VTA DA during initial punishment caused long-term punishment insensitivity

Disinhibition of ventral tegmental area during initial punishment learning causes enduring punishment insensitivity - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Disinhibition of ventral tegmental area during initial punishment learning causes enduring punishment insensitivity

New paper from lab on how VTA dopamine neurons + GABA inhibition contribute to punishment learning.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Come join us in Cape Town, South Africa to talk with behavioral neuroscientists from around the world. Submit your abstracts and register today! Abstract submission closes 2/20/26.

ibnsconnect.org/meetings

Most researchers miss out on innovation grants while medical fund sits on $25b Nine in 10 Australian researchers had their “ideas grant” applications rejected last year, even as Australia’s medical investment fund sits on $5 billion more than it was designed to hold.

A major part of our future health & prosperity lies in medical research. There are billions of available dollars that can be used for vital medical science. Please join the campaign for our government to act urgently to fully disperse these funds: aamri.org.au/mrff/
www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Are you and your colleagues interested in creating a symposium for our IBNS conference in South Africa? Submissions are less than a month away and we would love to hear your work! Call for symposia deadline is October 28th and to submit go to www.ibnsconnect.org/meetings #IBNSSouthAfrica

Benchmarks for Associative Learning Models: https://osf.io/qsgz8

Symposia / Satellite Proposals open for IBNS 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa! ibns.memberclicks.net/meetings

Why don’t some of us learn from punishment? Individuals differ drastically in whether they will cease actions with negative consequences. Using a specially-designed task, we explore the psychological roots for these differences, its stability a...

a little Behind-the-Paper from @lilithzeng.bsky.social and i

communities.springernature.com/posts/why-do...

Knowing better, doing worse: the science behind self-sabotaging behaviour UNSW researchers uncover why some people persist in harmful behaviours – even when they’ve been shown where they’re going wrong.

Cheers for the write-up @UNSW Newsroom & Lachlan Gilbert

www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/new...

Lots of little findings buried in Supps, as well as things that never made it to print. Happy to discuss!

Big kudos to the team @lilithzeng.bsky.social ‬Haeme Park @gavanm.bsky.social

3. Strong test-retest reliability! Majority of individuals had same behavioural phenotype when retested 6-months later. Subtle role for self-reported cognitive flexibility in this.

I think this finding is especially neat given recent critiques of poor test-retest reliability in mainstay tasks

2. Poor avoidance wasn't due to "habits" here. Poor avoiders knew what they were doing, and believed it was optimal.

Diagram of what seems to be happening ("Unawares" need explicit info to optimise choices. "Compulsives" need info too but fail to translate new knowledge into optimal strategy):

A cognitive pathway to punishment insensitivity | PNAS Individuals differ in their sensitivity to the adverse consequences of their actions, leading some to persist in maladaptive behaviors. Two pathway...

TL;DR (what's new..)
1. We replicate prev findings (pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...) with int'l broad population sample. Get 3 behavioural profiles that mainly differ in whether they learn from -ve experiences alone vs. needing/using extra info

Age seems to be a factor (see Supplementary!)

Causal inference and cognitive-behavioral integration deficits drive stable variation in human punishment sensitivity - Communications Psychology Using a gamified punishment task, this study identifies specific learning and decision-making deficits that drive robust, consequential differences in choice within an international, general populatio...

Stoked to share our new paper examining why people differ so much in avoiding harm www.nature.com/articles/s44...

We created a photometry python package for unbiased standardised post-hoc analysis using bootstrapping confidence intervals

No more AUC or time bins analysis! Ever

Follow our simple step by step instructions.

@foldi.bsky.social @philjrdb.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We have outlined issues with typical pre-processing steps for fibre photometry analysis. doi.org/10.1117/1.NP...

Main: standard linear fitting of isosbestic to experimental signals = BAD!
IRLS is conceptually+demonstrably better.

Lots discussed in paper. Code posted at github.com/philjrdb/Reg...

Have been away from social media, which has been nice. But figure I really should post some updates about what the lab has been up to.

Posts incoming.