Benjamin Becker The University of Hong Kong, Department of Psychology	GCNI Symposium "Windows on the Brain" Speaker Information

Short Bio:

Benjamin Becker is currently Full Professor and Director of the Neuroscience of Cognition, Affect and Motivation Laboratory at the University of Hong Kong. He received his degrees from the Universities of Trier and Duesseldorf in Germany. Following further training at the University of Bonn (Germany), he established an independent research group as a high-level foreign expert awarded Professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China where he directs the Becker Affect and Motivation Laboratory. The research teams (http://www.beckerlab.org) focus on determining the dynamic behavioral and neural mechanisms of emotional experiences, exploring how these mechanisms become dysregulated in mental disorders, and investigating how these processes can be regulated by novel neuromodulatory strategies, including neuropeptides (such as oxytocin and angiotensin) and neurotechnology. His research utilizes advanced MRI neuroimaging, AI-inspired neural decoding, as well as pharmacological and non-invasive neuromodulation strategies in both healthy individuals and clinical trials involving individuals with mental disorders. The corresponding findings have been published in over 250 peer-reviewed articles, including original publications in Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Communications, Advanced Science, PNAS, Molecular Psychiatry etc and perspectives in Nature, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, etc. He has received competitive research excellence awards and serves as Principal editor of Psychopharmacology and active editorial board member for Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, and Psychoradiology. He was the founding section chief editor of Frontiers in Social and Affective Neuroimaging, co-leads the COVID-induced brain dysfunctions initiative of the Global Brain Consortium and coordinates the Cognitive Science Programme at The University of Hong Kong.

Talk Title: Advanced neural decoding and modulation of human emotion and motivation

Abstract:

Emotion and motivation are evolutionary highly preserved drivers of behaviour and dysregulations in these processes represent a transdiagnostic feature across the most common mental disorders. The prevailing neuroimaging approaches are limited with respect to establishing process-specific and comprehensive brain models of the highly subjective conscious emotional and motivational experiences in humans. This in turn critically hampers the development and evaluation of novel interventions for mental disorders. In the present talk I will outline (1) how machine learning-based advanced decoding of fMRI-based neural activity can precisely determine the momentary emotional and motivational state in humans, (2) how these neural signatures can be translated into ecologically valid neurocomputational signatures that track conscious experiences in dynamic situations, and (3) how these neurocomputational signatures can be employed to rapidly test the therapeutic potential of neuropeptides (oxytocin, angiotensin II) as innovative treatments to enhance emotion and motivation regulation in humans.