Tommaso Zanasca | Trainee
Tommaso holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Leiden, where he focused primarily on brain and cognition, integrating a minor in neurobiology from the University of Amsterdam into his studies. He developed an interest in reward prediction errors and learning during his bachelor’s internship, where he analyzed event-related potentials and their relation to feedback modulation. Specifically, he looked at frontal medial theta oscillations as a marker for reward-prediction errors in unexpected social feedback.
Currently, Tommaso is pursuing a MSc in Cognitive neuroscience, specializing in perception, action, and decision-making. As part of his master’s thesis, he is working together with postdoctoral researcher Egbert Hartstra on a fMRI study regarding the updating of learning rules in differing contexts of controllability. Specifically, he will use a Receptor-Enriched Analysis of functional connectivity by targets (REACT) to investigate the role of different dopamine receptors in updating and maintaining beliefs of environmental controllability.