The human brain is highly flexible, enabling us to learn new skills throughout life. In particular, training on basic visual tasks has been shown to induce lasting improvements in performance, a phenomenon called perceptual learning. For example, radiologists are able to identify fine patterns of tumours in images that show no pattern to the layman. 

Why is that? Is the radiologist really seeing better? Or is she using the visual information in a more effective way than the layman? And what are the neurophysiological and molecular underpinnings of these changes in performance? 

During my PhD, I am investigating how improvements in performance during visual learning are related to changes in coupling between visual and decision-related areas of the brain.  Moreover, I will investigate how modulatory neurotransmitter systems orchestrate the dynamics of neural networks involved in learning. I combine psychophysics, pupillometry, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and pharmacology to address these questions.

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