Lilian Weber

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Motivation, Decision and NeuroStimulation (MoDeS) lab, headed by Miriam Klein-Fluegge. In my work, I try to understand how we learn and make decisions in a dynamic, uncertain environment. To that end, I combine computational models with measures of behaviour and brain function and non-invasive brain stimulation. I believe in transparent, reproducible, and inclusive science.

In my current projects, I (1) study how we flexibly adapt our learning and decision-making strategies to different levels of stability and noise in our environment, (2) develop novel paradigms that allow us to measure the neural signatures of this flexibility in a fast, yet reliable way using EEG and MEG, (3) test how the drug ketamine affects this flexibility in different domains (sensory, reward, emotion, interoception), and (4) test how low-intensity focused ultrasound stimulation of deep brain regions affects decision computations.

My work on the effects of ketamine on flexible evidence integration commenced during my first postdoc in the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN) lab, headed by Laurence Hunt. I am intrigued by the dual role of ketamine in psychiatry, as a pharmacological model of psychosis on the one hand, and a rapid antidepressant on the other hand.

Prior to coming to Oxford, I completed my PhD in Translational Neuromodeling with Klaas Enno Stephan and Frederike Petzschner at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. There, I used hierarchical Bayesian models, pharmacology, and EEG to understand how we process sensory signals in the auditory domain (using mismatch negativity paradigms) and in the interoceptive domain (using heartbeat evoked potential paradigms). My background is in psychology (German diploma/MSc) and physics (BSc), both of which I studied at the Philipps University Marburg in Germany.