Clay Holroyd

Associate Professor
Ph.D. 2001 (Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
joined Department in 2004

My primary scientific interest concerns the cognitive neuroscience of cognitive control and decision making. I am particularly interested in how the brain selects and sustains extended sequences of behavior, for example, how do we decide to jog up a steep mountain and then actually follow through with this decision rather than to stay at home and watch TV? My research points to anterior cingulate cortex and the midbrain dopamine system as a critical neural interface supporting such behavior, which I try to understand using a formal theoretical approach called Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning. Other related interests concern the neural mechanisms of substance dependence and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, both disorders of cognitive control and reward processing. I have also developed recent interests in spatial processing and navigation (parahippocampus), attention (locus coeruleus) and continuous motor control (posterior parietal cortex). To get at these issues I follow a "converging methods" approach involving electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, genetics and computational modelling.

Interests

Neurobiological mechanisms of cognitive control

Program affiliations

Cognition and brain sciences

Publications

Holroyd, C. B., & Yeung, N. (in press). An integrative theory of anterior cingulate cortex function: Option selection in hierarchical reinforcement learning. In R. Mars, J. Sallet, M. Rushworth, & N. Yeung (Eds.), Neural Basis of Motivational and Cognitive Control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Baker, T. E., Stockwell, T., Barnes, G., & Holroyd, C. B. (2011). Individual differences in substance dependence: At the intersection of brain, behavior and cognition. Addiction Biology, 16, 458-466.

Cockburn, J., & Holroyd, C. B. (2010). Focus on the positive: Computational simulations implicate asymmetrical reward prediction error signals in childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Brain Research, 1365, 18-34.

Baker, T. E., & Holroyd, C. B. (2009). Which way do I go? Neural activation in response to feedback and spatial processing in a Virtual T-Maze. Cerebral Cortex, 19, 1708-1722.