Gerard Derosiere is the principal investigator of our lab. He has held a permanent researcher position at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) since November 2022, establishing his line of research at the Lyon Research Center for Neuroscience (CRNL) on effort-based decision-making and apathy. Prior to his relocation to Lyon, Gerard dedicated eight years as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Julie Duque’s lab at UCLouvain, in Brussels, from 2014 to 2022. During this period, he also undertook short-term research stays in Prof. Paul Cisek’s lab at the University of Montreal in 2015, and in Prof. Rich Ivry's lab at UC Berkeley in 2019. Gerard earned his PhD through an international program between the University of Montpellier in France and the National University of Ireland. Throughout his academic background, he has developed an interest for the interplay between Cognition and Action and for the brain circuits that integrate these processes.

Atakan M. Akil is a postdoctoral researcher in our lab. Prior to joining our lab, he worked at the University of Pécs in Hungary and earned his PhD from Eötvös Loránd University. His research focused on frontal hemispheric asymmetry in self-regulation, particularly attentional and inhibitory control during reward and threat processing. In our lab, Atakan investigates the connectivity between brain circuits involved in effort-based decision-making in apathy, specifically focusing on fronto-striatal structures and the motor cortex. Beyond his primary research, he has a keen interest in meta-science, contributing to discussions on the foundations and methodologies of scientific inquiry.

Nam is a third-year PhD student, funded by the Centre for Research Training in Machine Learning (ML-Labs) at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland. He is co-supervised by Prof. Tomas Ward (who previously supervised Gerard Derosiere’s PhD!). Nam's research is centred on utilizing machine learning to enhance our understanding of human decision-making processes in the context of subclinical apathy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In addition to his primary research work for his PhD, Nam actively engages in numerous software hackathons and machine learning challenges as a hobby for major companies, including Zalando and Huawei. His exceptional problem-solving skills in machine learning, particularly in the areas of large language models and computer vision, have earned him several first and second prizes.

Margaux is a first-year PhD student, funded by a French Ministry PhD grant, which she earned through a selective competition process at the doctoral school in Neuroscience and Cognition (NSCo). Her PhD, co-supervised with Dr. Pierre Vassiliadis, explores the role of oscillatory processes in effort and reward valuation during effort-based decision-making. She applies advanced methods, including hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling, high-density transcranial electrical stimulation for oscillatory modulation, and magnetoencephalography for synchrony quantification.

We are looking for a motivated PhD student ! The project is realized in close collaboration with Dr. Franziska Knolle from TUM in Munich, and centers on apathy in schizophrenia. It includes international mobility between France and Germany, where the PhD student will conduct neuroimaging experiments with patients during research stays. More info to apply on the Positions page!

Norlan is a second-year Master student in biomedical engineering at UCLouvain funded by an Erasmus+ grant, doing an internship in the lab in 2024-2025. He is co-supervised with Dr. Frederic Crevecoeur at UCLouvain. Norlan is working on a project entitled "DeepStimSim", which explores the possibility of stimulating non-invasively dopaminergic structures of the brainstem involved in reward processing high-density transcranial Electrical Stimulation (HD-tES). To do so, Norlan uses advanced electric field simulations over magnetic resonance imaging data acquired in humans.