New ~£554K (FEC) BBSRC Grant!

Narender Ramnani was awarded a BBSRC grant to investigate Learning and Predictive Control in the Ageing Brain (BBSRC, £554K FEC). The project aim is to increase our understanding of how the brain translates predictive cues into learned actions using automatic and controlled processes, and how this processing changes during aging. We will use 3T (CUBIC, Royal Holloway) and ultra-high field 7T (University of Oxford) functional MRI, in both young and older participants, to chart the dynamics of activity in the human brain during both classical and instrumental learning in younger and older participants. The approach will combine fMRI with eyetracking during instrumentally acquired oculomotor behaviours, the classical conditioning of simple reflexes (cerebellar-dependent form of learning in animal models), and the testing of hypotheses about brain activity using computational models of memory formation in the brain. We will also investigate the impact of aging on oculomotor learning in older and younger drivers using state-of-the-art driving simulator facilities at the Institute for Future Transport and Cities at Coventry University.