From neural circuits to choices:

multi-scale dynamics in decision making

Decision making emerges from neural processes that unfold across multiple temporal and spatial scales, from rapid sensory encoding and action selection to slower learning, belief updating, and strategy formation. Recent advances in systems and computational neuroscience have begun to reveal how these dynamics are implemented in neural circuits and how they interact to shape behavior.

This Satellite will bring together leading researchers using animal models to study decision making through a combination of behavior, large-scale neuronal recordings, targeted circuit manipulations, and computational modeling. Talks will highlight recent advances in identifying how neural population dynamics in cortical and subcortical circuits give rise to adaptive choice behavior. A strong emphasis will be placed on mechanistic interpretations that link circuit activity to behavior across timescales, from moment-to-moment action selection to longer-term learning and strategy formation.

By integrating experimental and theoretical approaches, the symposium aims to define current conceptual frameworks, identify unifying principles in the study of decision making, clarify how different timescales interact within and across brain circuits, and discuss key challenges for future research. The event will be of interest to systems neuroscientists, computational neuroscientists, and trainees seeking a circuit-level understanding of decision making grounded in causal experimentation.

5th of July 2026

FRCB-IDIBAPS. Center Esther Koplovitz

C/Rosselló 149-153 08036 Barcelona

Invited speakers

Preliminary program

08:45 - 09:00: Registration
09:00 - 09:45: Tobias Donner - Distributed Decision Dynamics in the Human Cortex
09:45 - 10:30: Tihana Jovanic - Neural circuit mechanism underlying flexible sensorimotor decisions
10:30 - 11:15: Lorenzo Fontolan - Circuit Mechanisms of Ramping Dynamics in Decision-Making

11:15 - 11:45: Coffee break

11:45 - 12:30: Lucas Pinto - Computational logic and circuit mechanisms of large-scale cortical dynamics during perceptual decisions
12:30 - 13:15: Sukbin Lim - Memory biases shaped by drift dynamics, uncertainty, and decision-making

13:15 - 14:15: Lunch

14:15 - 15:00: Torben Ott - Behavioral perturbations of tuning dynamics in rat orbitofrontal cortex
15:00 - 15:45: Fanny Cazettes - Effects of serotonin on foraging strategy and frontal cortex dynamics
15:45 - 16:30: Joao Barbosa - Modeling neuromodulator-driven cortical dynamics with RNNs

16:30 - 17:00: Coffee break

17:00 - 17:45: Ran Darshan - TBC
17:45 - 18:30: Talk 10

Organizers:

Hernando M. Vergara

Jaime de la Rocha

Albert Compte