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Adaptive behaviour requires that we monitor the changing environment, and, when needed, re-interpret our priorities, and re-evaluate our plans for action. This complex ability matures slowly and is deployed differently at different stages of life. It is also impaired in disorders of thought and behaviour.

To study adaptive behaviour in our lab, we combine neuroimaging and behavioural methods with computational modelling. We focus on the remodelling of brain circuitry as we mature, especially during adolescence.

In recent work we integrate structural and functional connectivity with dynamical analysis methods to understand flexible behaviour at multiple time-scales, including what apsects are challenged in disorder (e.g. in ADHD, autism, or depression).

This approach enables us to study experience-bound moment-to-moment changes in brain and behaviour, as well as the interaction of these changes with slower maturational processes over development.

Explore some of our current and past research projects below:

INDIE

SERE

HAVEN

Learning what to learn

BBCEO

INDIE

The INDIE study aims to understand how fluctuations in brain and body physiology affect the cognitive and emotional development of young people during adolescence.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of INDIE is to measure the marked and volatile changes in physiology that ignite during puberty, and understand how these changes relate to young people’s cognitive and emotional maturation. This will help develop strategies about how to help young people thrive during this important developmental period, and how to better support those at risk of psychopathology.

Previous research has shown that hormone changes during the teenage years are associated with changes in the structure, organisation, and function of the brain. At the same time, young people experience many developmentally important changes, such as increased lability in mood, age-specific changes in sleep quality and sleep physiology, and challenges in regulating emotion. However, we do not yet understand the mechanisms that link the changes in hormone and brain physiology with the behavioural, cognitive, and emotional profile of adolescence. For example, we don’t understand how the very prominent fluctuations in physiology (for example during the menstrual cycle) may be driving maturation in this age range.

The INDIE study uses brain imaging, and measures of physiology, mood, sleep, cognition, and physical activity to synthesise a detailed picture of the interplay between experience, physiology, and development. We work with young people and their parents and carers, as well as with teachers and other educators, clinicians and mental health practitioners. Together we design, interprete, and make use of our research.

Contact the INDIE study team to find out more, including ways in which you can get involved.

SERE

The SERE study assesses the reliability of behavioural flexibility measures as indexed either by measuring task performance, or by computational models of latent factors contributing to performance.

Purpose of the study

The study of learning and decision-making processes in psychology and neuroscience typically relies on the use of conditioning tasks to assay behaviour. These include instrumental conditioning tasks where subjects learn through experience the relevant associations between actions and outcomes, such as pulling a slot machine lever to win money. These associations either increase or decrease the likelihood of a given action in the future, depending on whether the outcome was rewarding or punishing. However, these associations also need to be updated flexibly for an individual to respond adaptively to dynamic and changing environments.

This complex competence can be assessed in the lab using behavioural tasks and measuring aspects of performance, such as how quickly people shoft away from a previously succesful action when it stops being rewarded. We can also use computational models that try to disentangle the different processes that underpin successful performance, but it is not well understood whether such models are reliable across different participants, or within the same participant over time.

In SERE, we use repeated testing and reinforcement learning models to assess the extent of this reliability and the usefulness of these paradigms for studies of behavioural or physiological change over the timescale of weeks.

Sample size matters when estimating test–retest reliability of behaviour

Williams, B., FitzGibbon, L., Brady, D., & Christakou, A. (2025). Sample size matters when estimating test–retest reliability of behaviour. Behavior Research Methods, 57(4), 123. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02599-1

Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) are a commonly used metric in test-retest reliability research to assess a measure's ability to quantify systematic between-subject differences. However, estimates of between-subject differences are also influenced by factors including within-subject variability, random errors, and measurement bias. Here, we use data collected from a large online sample (N = 150) to (1) quantify test-retest reliability of behavioural and computational measures of reversal learning using ICCs, and (2) use our dataset as the basis for a simulation study investigating the effects of sample size on variance component estimation and the association between estimates of variance components and ICC measures. In line with previously published work, we find reliable behavioural and computational measures of reversal learning, a commonly used assay of behavioural flexibility. Reliable estimates of between-subject, within-subject (across-session), and error variance components for behavioural and computational measures (with ± .05 precision and 80% confidence) required sample sizes ranging from 10 to over 300 (behavioural median N: between-subject = 167, within-subject = 34, error = 103; computational median N: between-subject = 68, within-subject = 20, error = 45). These sample sizes exceed those often used in reliability studies, suggesting that sample sizes larger than are commonly used for reliability studies (circa 30) are required to robustly estimate reliability of task performance measures. Additionally, we found that ICC estimates showed highly positive and highly negative correlations with between-subject and error variance components, respectively, as might be expected, which remained relatively stable across sample sizes. However, ICC estimates were weakly or not correlated with within-subject variance, providing evidence for the importance of variance decomposition for reliability studies.

Contact us to find out more, including ways in which you can get involved.

HAVEN

The HAVEN study aims to investigate whether the way our blood naturally clots can affect the health of the blood vessels around the body and in the brain, and how this relates to cognitive function in older life.

Purpose of the study

Previous research has shown that cardiovascular health conditions (like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes) are linked to brain health and cognitive function in older adults. There is some evidence that certain regions of the brain that are involved in memory may be particularly affected. However, we do not yet know exactly how blood vessel health can affect the brain. In particular, we don’t know whether overall cardiovascular health affects only the blood vessels in the brain, the brain cells, or the ability for blood vessels and brain cells to work together in a co-ordinated way.

This research study will investigate these relationships. One of our goals is to see if there are substances in the blood that can help to identify and protect individuals at risk of developing brain health problems in later life.

Contact the HAVEN study team to find out more, including ways in which you can get involved.

Learning what to learn

This study examines how the cholinergic modulation of the human basal ganglia influences adaptive behaviour, using functional, structural, and neurochemical imaging of reinforcement learning.

Contact us to find out more.

BBCEO

In collaboration with the John Madejski Centre for Reputation and the CEOs of large international organisations, we ask what aspects of disposition, brain and behaviour characterise extraordinary leaders.

Contact us to find out more.

header image credit: unknown, likely from online material for a London art degree show, late 2010s?

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