Rubén Moreno-Bote

How Intrinsic Motivation Underlies Embodied Open-Ended Behavior Although most theories posit that natural behavior can be explained as maximizing some form of extrinsic reward, often called utility, some behaviors appear to be reward independent. For instance, spo...

New preprint. A review on Intrinsic Motivation Theories

arxiv.org/abs/2601.10276

In collaboration with an amazing team

Relevant papers:

openreview.net/forum?id=OcH...

openreview.net/forum?id=mZH...

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

Postdoc & PhD positions
How intrinsic motivation underlies intelligent, open-ended and embodied behavior in natural and artificial agents
Apply if interested
sites.google.com/view/morenob...

Access & admission - Master in Brain and Cognition - UPF

2/2
Alex Hyafil (neurons & cognition)
Klaus Wimmer (neurons & cognition)
Juanma Toro (language)

upf.edu/web/mbc/acce...

You will learn all you need to do research in cognitive and computational neuroscience

1/2 Brain and Cognition Master at
@UPFBarcelona

Why to enroll here?
Nuria Sebastian-Galles (language, Premio Nacional)
Gustavo Deco (comp neuro)
Chris Summerfield (cognition & AI)
Salva Soto-Faraco (attention)
Rubén Moreno-Bote (comp neuro & AI)

Complex behavior from intrinsic motivation to occupy future action-state path space - Nature Communications Intelligent behavior of artificial agents and their design are usually considered as a reward maximization phenomenon, however, the reward function construction may be challenging. The authors introdu...

Relevant papers:

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

openreview.net/forum?id=OcH...

openreview.net/forum?id=Sze...

📷PhD Position in Computational Neuroscience and AI, Moreno-Bote Lab, Barcelona.

1 fully funded PhD position is available. Deadline November 2025. See post below.

Dorcas Muthoni PhD Fellowship - PhD in Information and Communication Technologies - UPF

www.upf.edu/web/phd-engi...
Dorcas Muthoni PhD Fellowship at UPF, for Female Researchers of African nationality only. If you hold a degree in Physics, Computer Science or Mathematics, please, apply to my comp neuro theory lab. Send me your CV and transcript of grades to my email.

The relationship between confidence and gaze-at-nothing oculomotor dynamics during decision-making How does confidence relate to oculomotor dynamics during decision-making? Do oculomotor dynamics reflect deliberation and the buildup of confidence in the absence of visual stimuli? Here we examine th...

Do you "look at nothing" when making a decision?

Here we provide further evidence about the connection betwee gaze into nothing and decision confidence, revealing more on the sequential hidden dynamics of decisions

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

I would not use any extrinsic reward function. Instead, I would use an intrinsic motivation.

Nice problem. If you had a perfect replica, then the answer is yes. But if you miss a single data point, then there will be divergence between predictions and reality. The only way to fill in the gap is to have a model of behavior, adding embodiment and a reason for the brain to exist.

Great work with @d-ferro.bsky.social‬ and Ben Hayden

Yes!

This position has already been filled. Thanks to all the applicants for making my choice tough.

Complex behavior from intrinsic motivation to occupy future action-state path space - Nature Communications Intelligent behavior of artificial agents and their design are usually considered as a reward maximization phenomenon, however, the reward function construction may be challenging. The authors introdu...

You can find relevant papers here
nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com/articles/s41...
openreview.net/forum?id=yXW...

You can find relevant papers here
nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com/articles/s41...
openreview.net/forum?id=yXW...

New open PhD position in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience in my lab.
We want to discover the basis of natural intelligence.
Please, spread the word, and apply if interested.
See more details below.

BAMB! Course philosophy Our goal is​ to teach advanced techniques in model-based analysis of behavior (humans and other animals) to cognitive and computational neuroscientists at PhD and early career levels...

Our Barcelona-based summer school, BAMB! (bambschool.org) just opened applications! Come join us: 15-24th July, to learn how to model behavioral data using RL, Bayesian, latent variable models, RNNs, DDMs & more! #BAMB2025

Complex behavior from intrinsic motivation to occupy future action-state path space - Nature Communications Intelligent behavior of artificial agents and their design are usually considered as a reward maximization phenomenon, however, the reward function construction may be challenging. The authors introdu...

You can find relevant papers here
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
openreview.net/forum?id=yXW...
openreview.net/forum?id=mZH...

Open PhD position in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience in my lab.
We want to discover the basis of natural intelligence.
Please, spread the word, and apply if interested.
See more details below.

Done!

done!

sure!

Would be great to be added. Thanks! Credentials: scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Sure! Eg, here is my latest with Brent Doiron and others using linear response theory in circuits with multiple inhibitory subtypes: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Come to the San Juan Islands next summer to learn about some awesome data and hang out with a bunch of awesome scientists ... and me.

Dear Christoph, can you send me your most representative purely-theory paper, to be posted as well?

Representational drift as the consequence of ongoing memory storage Memory systems with biologically constrained synapses have been the topic of intense theoretical study for over thirty years. Perhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching finding from this work is th...

👋
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Complex behavior from intrinsic motivation to occupy future action-state path space - Nature Communications Intelligent behavior of artificial agents and their design are usually considered as a reward maximization phenomenon, however, the reward function construction may be challenging. The authors introdu...

In the lab we have been working on this
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In the cat-mouse example, you can see how goal-directed behavior is built on the fly, and transitions are observed between goals. Still we did not characterize the complexity of behavioral transitions, yet to be done.

I have created this space to focus on theoretical neuroscience.
Totally biased to theory.

go.bsky.app/3TNRgME