
Professor Andrew Lawrence
Msc Sussex, PhD Cantab
Professor
- lawrencead@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2087 0712
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Maindy Road, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ
Overview
Research summary
My research is in Hedonic Neuroscience and Self-Control. What are the neural correlates of pleasures, desires, fears and aversions? How do we control our appetites and fears? How do we control our selfish interests and act prosocially?
In particular, I’m interested in the psychology, neurobiology and genetics of individual differences in complex traits linked to personality and self-control. How and why do individuals vary in their temperamental emotional reactivity and self-control and how does this influence risk for mood, obesity and addictive disorders?
Other research helps to understand how social values get translated into action. This research is being undertaken in collaboration with colleagues in the Values in Action (ViA) Centre, at Cardiff University.
I am the Lead for Early Career Staff Development at CUBRIC (Cardiff University Breain Research Imaging Centre).
Teaching summary
I currently teach on PS2019 (Research design, statistics and computing) and PS3416 (Emotion: Social and neuroscience perspectives). In addition, I supervise final year projects and medical student projects related to my research interests.
Biography
Postgraduate education
1994: MSc Experimental Psychology (University of Sussex)
1997: PhD Experimental Psychology (University of Cambridge). Supervised by TW Robbins & BJ Sahakian
Employment
Mar 2007-present: Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK; Affiliate member MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics
2004-2007: MRC Programme Leader (track), MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
2000-2004: Postdoctoral scientist, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
1997-2000: Postdoctoral training fellowship (neuroimaging), MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, London, UK
Honours and awards
Awards/external committees
2005-present: Lifetime fellowship, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, UK
2009-present: Parkinson’s UK Research Advisory Panel
Publications
2020
- Tzavella, L.et al. 2020. The affective priming paradigm as an indirect measure of food attitudes and related choice behaviour. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 27, pp. 1397-1415. (10.3758/s13423-020-01764-1)
- Berry, S. C.et al. 2020. Extended-amygdala intrinsic functional connectivity networks: a population study. Human Brain Mapping (10.1002/hbm.25314)
- Crawford, B.et al. 2020. Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward. Scientific Reports 10, article number: 18010. (10.1038/s41598-020-74334-z)
- Coad, B.et al. 2020. Structural connections support emotional connections: uncinate fasciculus microstructure is related to the ability to decode facial emotion expressions. Neuropsychologia 145 (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.006)
- Williams, A. N.et al. 2020. The role of the pre-commissural fornix in episodic autobiographical memory and simulation. Neuropsychologia 142, article number: Volume 142, May 2020, 107457. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107457)
- Lord, S. R.et al. 2020. Freezing of gait in people with Parkinson's disease: nature, occurrence, and risk factors. Journal of Parkinson's Disease 10(2), pp. 631-640. (10.3233/JPD-191813)
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2020. The role of the fornix in human navigational learning. Cortex 124, pp. 97-110. (10.1016/j.cortex.2019.10.017)
- Crawford, B.et al. 2020. Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain. bioRxiv (10.1101/2020.02.03.916999)
2019
- Costigan, A. G.et al. 2019. Neurochemical correlates of scene processing in the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex: A multimodal fMRI and 1H-MRS study. Human Brain Mapping 40(10), pp. 2884-2898. (10.1002/hbm.24566)
- Karahan, E.et al. 2019. Cognitive and white-matter compartment models reveal selective relations 1 between corticospinal tract microstructure and simple reaction time. Journal of Neuroscience 39(30), pp. 5910-5921. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2954-18.2019)
- Valji, A.et al. 2019. Curious connections: white matter pathways supporting individual differences in epistemic and perceptual curiosity. bioRxiv (10.1101/642165)
- Whone, A. L.et al. 2019. Extended treatment with glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor in Parkinson's Disease. Journal of Parkinson's Disease 9(2), pp. 301-313. (10.3233/JPD-191576)
- Whone, A.et al. 2019. Randomized trial of intermittent intraputamenal glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor in Parkinson's disease. Brain 142(3), pp. 512-525. (10.1093/brain/awz023)
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2019. Increased posterior default mode network activity and structural connectivity in young adult APOE-ε4 carriers: a multi-modal imaging investigation. Neurobiology of Aging 73, pp. 82-91. (10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2018.08.026)
2017
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2017. Distinct contributions of the fornix and inferior longitudinal fasciculus to episodic and semantic autobiographical memory. Cortex 94, pp. 1-14. (10.1016/j.cortex.2017.05.010)
- Ihssen, N.et al. 2017. Neurofeedback of visual food cue reactivity: a potential avenue to alter incentive sensitization and craving. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11(3), pp. 915-924. (10.1007/s11682-016-9558-x)
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2017. Ultra-high-field fMRI reveals a role for the subiculum in scene perceptual discrimination. Journal of Neuroscience 37(12), pp. 3150-3159. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3225-16.2017)
2016
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2016. Evidencing a place for the hippocampus within the core scene processing network. Human Brain Mapping 37(11), pp. 3779-3794. (10.1002/hbm.23275)
- Keedwell, P. A.et al. 2016. Subgenual cingulum microstructure supports control of emotional conflict. Cerebral Cortex 26(6), pp. 2850-2862. (10.1093/cercor/bhw030)
- Henderson, E. J.et al. 2016. Rivastigmine for gait stability in patients with Parkinson's disease (ReSPonD): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial. Lancet Neurology 15(3), pp. 249-258. (10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00389-0)
2015
- Pellicano, C.et al. 2015. Morphometric changes in the reward system of Parkinson's disease patients with impulse control disorders. Journal of Neurology 262(12), pp. 2653-2661. (10.1007/s00415-015-7892-3)
- Shine, J. P.et al. 2015. APOE-ε4 selectively modulates posteromedial cortex activity during scene perception and short-term memory in young healthy adults. Scientific Reports 5, article number: 16322. (10.1038/srep16322)
- Loane, C.et al. 2015. Psychogenic and neural visual-cue response in PD dopamine dysregulation syndrome. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders 21(11), pp. 1336-1341. (10.1016/j.parkreldis.2015.09.042)
- Hodgetts, C. J.et al. 2015. Dissociable roles of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and fornix in face and place perception. eLife 4, article number: e07902. (10.7554/eLife.07902)
- Muhlert, N. and Lawrence, A. D. 2015. Brain structure correlates of emotion-based rash impulsivity. NeuroImage 115, pp. 138-146. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.04.061)
- Wu, K.et al. 2015. Single versus multiple impulse control disorders in Parkinson's disease: an 11C-raclopride positron emission tomography study of reward cue-evoked striatal dopamine release. Journal of Neurology 262(6), pp. 1504-1514. (10.1007/s00415-015-7722-7)
2014
- van der Klaauw, A. A.et al. 2014. Obesity-associated melanocortin-4 receptor mutations are associated with changes in the brain response to food cues. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 99(10), article number: E2101. (10.1210/jc.2014-1651)
- Djamshidian, A.et al. 2014. Perceptual decision-making in patients with Parkinson's disease. Journal of Psychopharmacology 28(12), pp. 1149-1154. (10.1177/0269881114548437)
- Postans, M.et al. 2014. Individual variation in fornix microstructure and macrostructure is related to visual discrimination accuracy for scenes but not faces. Journal of Neuroscience 34(36), pp. 12121-12126. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0026-14.2014)
- Wu, K.et al. 2014. Problematic internet use in Parkinson's disease. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders 20(5), pp. 482-487. (10.1016/j.parkreldis.2014.01.019)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Brooks, D. J. 2014. Ventral striatal dopamine synthesis capacity is associated with individual differences in behavioral disinhibition. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 8, article number: 86. (10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00086)
2013
- Henderson, E. J.et al. 2013. The ReSPonD trial - rivastigmine to stabilise gait in Parkinson's disease a phase II, randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial to evaluate the effect of rivastigmine on gait in patients with Parkinson's disease who have fallen. BMC Neurology 13(1), article number: 188. (10.1186/1471-2377-13-188)
- Peers, P. V., Simons, J. S. and Lawrence, A. D. 2013. Prefrontal control of attention to threat. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, article number: 24. (10.3389/fnhum.2013.00024)
- Lawrence, A. D., Brooks, D. J. and Whone, A. L. 2013. Ventral striatal dopamine synthesis capacity predicts financial extravagance in Parkinson's Disease. Frontiers in Psychology 4, article number: 90. (10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00090)
- Politis, M.et al. 2013. Neural response to visual sexual cues in dopamine treatment-linked hypersexuality in Parkinson's disease. Brain 136(2), pp. 400-411. (10.1093/brain/aws326)
2012
- Lawrence, A. D. 2012. Affective neuroscience: Food 'wanting' hotspot in dorsal striatum. Current Biology 22(20), pp. R878-R880. (10.1016/j.cub.2012.08.031)
- Lawrence, N. S.et al. 2012. Nucleus accumbens response to food cues predicts subsequent snack consumption in women and increased body mass index in those with reduced self-control. Neuroimage 63(1), pp. 415-422. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.070)
- Ghosh, B. C. P.et al. 2012. Social cognitive deficits and their neural correlates in progressive supranuclear palsy. Brain 135(7), pp. 2089-2102. (10.1093/brain/aws128)
- Smith, J. E.et al. 2012. Storm in a coffee cup: caffeine modifies brain activation to social signals of threat. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 7(7), pp. 831-840. (10.1093/scan/nsr058)
2011
- O'Sullivan, S. S.et al. 2011. Cue-induced striatal dopamine release in Parkinson's disease-associated impulsive-compulsive behaviours. Brain 134(4), pp. 969-978. (10.1093/brain/awr003)
- Boy, F.et al. 2011. Dorsolateral Prefrontal γ-Aminobutyric Acid in Men Predicts Individual Differences in Rash Impulsivity. Biological Psychiatry 70(9), pp. 866-872. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.05.030)
- Lawrence, A. D., Goerendt, I. K. and Brooks, D. J. 2011. Apathy blunts neural response to money in Parkinson's disease. Social Neuroscience 6(5-6), pp. 653-662. (10.1080/17470919.2011.556821)
2010
- Dunn, B. D.et al. 2010. Listening to your heart: How interoception shapes emotion experience and intuitive decision making. Psychological Science 21(12), pp. 1835-1844. (10.1177/0956797610389191)
- O'Sullivan, S. S.et al. 2010. Reckless generosity in Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders 25(2), pp. 221-223. (10.1002/mds.22687)
- O'Sullivan, S. S.et al. 2010. Excessive hoarding in Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders 25(8), pp. 1026-1033. (10.1002/mds.23016)
- O'Sullivan, S. S.et al. 2010. Impulsive-compulsive spectrum behaviors in pathologically confirmed progressive supranuclear palsy. Movement Disorders 25(5), pp. 638-642. (10.1002/mds.22902)
- Evans, A. H.et al. 2010. Compulsive use of dopaminergic drug therapy in Parkinson's disease: Reward and anti-reward. Movement Disorders 25(7), pp. 867-876. (10.1002/mds.22898)
- Calder, A. J.et al. 2010. The relation between anger and different forms of disgust: Implications for emotion recognition impairments in Huntington's disease. Neuropsychologia 48(9), pp. 2719-2729. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.05.019)
- Tapper, K., Pothos, E. M. and Lawrence, A. D. 2010. Feast your eyes: Hunger and trait reward drive predict attentional bias for food cues. Emotion 10(6), pp. 949-954. (10.1037/a0020305)
- O'Sullivan, S. S.et al. 2010. Sleep disturbance and impulsive-compulsive behaviours in Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 82(6), pp. 620-622. (10.1136/jnnp.2009.186874)
- Tavares, P., Barnard, P. J. and Lawrence, A. D. 2010. Emotional complexity and the neural representation of emotion in motion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 6(1), pp. 98-108. (10.1093/scan/nsq021)
2009
- Koepp, M.et al. 2009. Evidence for endogenous opioid release in the amygdala during positive emotion. NeuroImage 44(1), pp. 252-256. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.08.032)
- Evans, A. H., Lawrence, A. D. and Lees, A. J. 2009. Changes in psychomotor effects of L-dopa and methylphenidate after sustained dopaminergic therapy in Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 80(3), pp. 267-272. (10.1136/jnnp.2006.108993)
- Ewbank, M. P.et al. 2009. Anxiety predicts a differential neural response to attended and unattended facial signals of anger and fear. NeuroImage 44(3), pp. 1144-1151. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.09.056)
- Peers, P. V. and Lawrence, A. D. 2009. Attentional control of emotional distraction in rapid serial visual presentation. Emotion 9(1), pp. 140-145. (10.1037/a0014507)
- Dunn, B. D.et al. 2009. A reduction in positive self-judgment bias is uniquely related to the anhedonic symptoms of depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy 47(5), pp. 374-381. (10.1016/j.brat.2009.01.016)
- Lim, S.et al. 2009. Dopamine dysregulation syndrome, impulse control disorders and punding after deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson's disease. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience 16(9), pp. 1148-1152. (10.1016/j.jocn.2008.12.010)
- Von Dem Hagen, E.et al. 2009. Leaving a bad taste in your mouth but not in my insula. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 4(4), pp. 379-386. (10.1093/scan/nsp018)
- Lawrence, A. D. 2009. Apathy. In: Sander, D. and Scherer, K. eds. Oxford Companion to Emotion and the Affective Sciences. Series in Affective Science Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 44.
2008
- Beaver, J. D.et al. 2008. Appetitive motivation predicts the neural response to facial signals of aggression. Journal of Neuroscience 28(11), pp. 2719-2725. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0033-08.2008)
- Tavares, P., Lawrence, A. D. and Barnard, P. J. 2008. Paying attention to social meaning: An fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex 18(8), pp. 1876-1885. (10.1093/cercor/bhm212)
2007
- Calder, A. J.et al. 2007. Disgust sensitivity predicts the insula and pallidal response to pictures of disgusting foods. European Journal of Neuroscience 25(11), pp. 3422-3428. (10.1111/j.1460-9568.2007.05604.x)
- Dunn, B. D.et al. 2007. The accuracy of self-monitoring and its relationship to self-focused attention in dysphoria and clinical depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 116(1), pp. 1-15. (10.1037/0021-843X.116.1.1)
- Lawrence, A. D., Goerendt, I. K. and Brooks, D. J. 2007. Impaired recognition of facial expressions of anger in Parkinson's disease patients acutely withdrawn from dopamine replacement therapy. Neuropsychologia 45(1), pp. 65-74. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.04.016)
- Dunn, B. D.et al. 2007. Heartbeat perception in depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy 45(8), pp. 1921-1930. (10.1016/j.brat.2006.09.008)
- Bishop, S. J., Jenkins, R. and Lawrence, A. D. 2007. Neural Processing of Fearful Faces: Effects of Anxiety are Gated by Perceptual Capacity Limitations. Cerebral Cortex 17(7), pp. 1595-1603. (10.1093/cercor/bhl070)
2006
- Beaver, J. D.et al. 2006. Individual differences in reward drive predict neural responses to images of food. Journal of Neuroscience 26(19), pp. 5160-5166. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0350-06.2006)
- Goerendt, I. K.et al. 2006. Distributed neural actions of anti-parkinsonian therapies as revealed by PET. Journal of Neural Transmission 113(1), pp. 75-86. (10.1007/s00702-005-0305-5)
- Dunn, B. D., Dalgleish, T. and Lawrence, A. D. 2006. The somatic marker hypothesis: a critical evaluation. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 30(2), pp. 239-271. (10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.07.001)
- Evans, A. H.et al. 2006. Compulsive drug use linked to sensitized ventral striatal dopamine transmission. Annals of Neurology 59(5), pp. 852-858. (10.1002/ana.20822)
2005
- Cools, R.et al. 2005. Individual differences in threat sensitivity predict serotonergic modulation of amygdala response to fearful faces. Psychopharmacology 180(4), pp. 670-679. (10.1007/s00213-005-2215-5)
- Evans, A. H.et al. 2005. Factors influencing susceptibility to compulsive dopaminergic drug use in Parkinson disease. Neurology 65(10), pp. 1570-1574. (10.1212/01.wnl.0000184487.72289.f0)
- Evans, A. H.et al. 2005. Relationship between impulsive sensation seeking traits, smoking, alcohol and caffeine intake, and Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 77(3), pp. 317-321. (10.1136/jnnp.2005.065417)
2004
- Mathews, A., Yiend, J. and Lawrence, A. D. 2004. Individual differences in the modulation of fear-related brain activation by attentional control. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16(10), pp. 1683-1694. (10.1162/0898929042947810)
- Bishop, S. J., Duncan, J. and Lawrence, A. D. 2004. State anxiety modulation of the amygdala response to unattended threat-related stimuli. The Journal of Neuroscience 24(46), pp. 10364-10368. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2550-04.2004)
- Dunn, B. D.et al. 2004. Categorical and dimensional reports of experienced affect to emotion-inducing pictures in depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113(4), pp. 654-660. (10.1037/0021-843X.113.4.654)
- Calder, A. J.et al. 2004. Impaired recognition of anger following damage to the ventral striatum. Brain 127(9), pp. 1958-1969. (10.1093/brain/awh214)
- Evans, A. H.et al. 2004. Punding in Parkinson's disease: Its relation to the dopamine dysregulation syndrome. Movement Disorders 19(4), pp. 397-405. (10.1002/mds.20045)
- Bishop, S.et al. 2004. Prefrontal cortical function and anxiety: exterting control over threat-related stimuli. Nature Neuroscience 7(2), pp. 184-188. (10.1038/nn1173)
- McGowan, S.et al. 2004. Presynaptic dopaminergic function in schizophrenia: a Positron Emission Tomographic [18F]Fluorodopa study. Archives of General Psychiatry 61(2), pp. 134-142. (10.1001/archpsyc.61.2.134)
- Goerendt, I. K., Lawrence, A. D. and Brooks, D. J. 2004. Reward processing in health and Parkinson's disease: Neural organization and reorganization. Cerebral Cortex 14(1), pp. 73-80. (10.1093/cercor/bhg105)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Calder, A. J. 2004. Homologizing human emotions. In: Evans, D. and Cruse, P. eds. Emotion, Evolution and Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 15-47., (10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528975.003.0002)
- Lawrence, A. D., Murphy, F. C. and Calder, A. J. 2004. Dissociating fear and disgust: implications for the structure of emotions. In: Yiend, J. ed. Cognition, Emotion and Psychopathology: Theoretical, Empirical, and Clinical Approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 149-171., (10.1017/CBO9780511521263.009)
2003
- Mehta, M. A.et al. 2003. Systemic sulpiride modulates striatal blood flow: relationships to spatial working memory and planning. NeuroImage 20(4), pp. 1982-1994. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.08.007)
- Lawrence, A. D., Evans, A. H. and Lees, A. J. 2003. Compulsive use of dopamine replacement therapy in Parkinson's disease: reward systems gone awry?. The Lancet Neurology 2(10), pp. 595-604. (10.1016/S1474-4422(03)00529-5)
- Goerendt, I. K.et al. 2003. Dopamine release during sequential finger movements in health and Parkinson's disease: a PET study. Brain 126(2), pp. 312-325. (10.1093/brain/awg035)
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 2003. Impaired visual discrimination learning in anorexia nervosa. Appetite 40(1), pp. 85-89. (10.1016/S0195-6663(02)00138-1)
- Murphy, F. C., Nimmo-Smith, I. and Lawrence, A. D. 2003. Functional neuroanatomy of emotions: A meta-analysis. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 3(3), pp. 207-233. (10.3758/CABN.3.3.207)
2002
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 2002. Selective disruption of the recognition of facial expressions of anger. Neuroreport 13(6), pp. 881-884.
- Rabiner, E. A.et al. 2002. A database of [C-11]WAY-100635 binding to 5-HT1A receptors in normal male volunteers: Normative data and relationship to methodological, demographic, physiological, and behavioral variables. NeuroImage 15(3), pp. 620-632. (10.1006/nimg.2001.0984)
- Calder, A. J.et al. 2002. Reading the mind from eye gaze. Neuropsychologia 40(8), pp. 1129-1138. (10.1016/S0028-3932(02)00008-8)
- Lawrence, A. D. 2002. Huntington's disease. In: Harrison, J. and Owen, A. M. eds. Cognitive Deficits in Neurological Disorders. London: Dunitz, pp. 169-196.
2001
- Cagnin, A.et al. 2001. In vivo visualization of activated glia by [C-11] (R)-PK11195-PET following herpes encephalitis reveals projected neuronal damage beyond the primary focal lesion. Brain 124(10), pp. 2014-2027. (10.1093/brain/124.10.2014)
- Calder, A. J., Lawrence, A. D. and Young, A. W. 2001. Neuropsychology of fear and loathing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, pp. 352-363. (10.1028/35072584)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Grasby, P. M. 2001. The functional neuroanatomy of emotional disorders. In: Boller, F. and Grafman, J. eds. Emotional Behaviour and its Disorders., Vol. 5. Handbook of Neuropsychology, 2nd Edition Vol. 5. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 235-262.
- Lawrence, A. D., Rosser, A. E. and Sahakian, B. J. 2001. Cognition. In: Fawcett, J. W., Rosser, A. E. and Dunnett, S. B. eds. Brain Damage, Brain Repair. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 243-254., (10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523376.003.0018)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Sahakian, B. J. 2001. Outcome variables in dementia trials: conceptual and practical issues. In: Guiloff, R. J. ed. Clinical Trials in Neurology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 171-182.
2000
- Lawrence, A. D. 2000. Error correction and the basal ganglia: similar computations for action, cognition and emotion?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(10), pp. 365-367. (10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01535-7)
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 2000. Visual object and visuospatial cognition in Huntington's disease: implications for information processing in corticostriatal circuits. Brain 123(7), pp. 1349-1364. (10.1093/brain/123.7.1349)
- Watkins, L. H. A.et al. 2000. Impaired planning but intact decision making in early Huntington's disease: implications for specific fronto-striatal pathology. Neuropsychologia 38(8), pp. 1112-1125. (10.1016/S0028-3932(00)00028-2)
1999
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 1999. Discrimination, reversal, and shift learning in Huntington's disease: mechanisms of impaired response selection. Neuropsychologia 37(12), pp. 1359-1374. (10.1016/S0028-3932(99)00035-4)
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 1999. Steps to a neurochemistry of personality [Letter]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22(3), pp. 528-529. (10.1017/S0140525X99332040)
1998
- Robbins, T. W.et al. 1998. A study of performance on tests from the CANTAB battery sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction in a large sample of normal volunteers: Implications for theories of executive functioning and cognitive aging. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 4(5), pp. 474-490.
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 1998. Evidence for specific cognitive deficits in preclinical Huntington's disease. Brain 121(7), pp. 1329-1341. (10.1093/brain/121.7.1329)
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 1998. The relationship between striatal dopamine receptor binding and cognitive performance in Huntington's disease. Brain 121(7), pp. 1343-1355. (10.1093/brain/121.7.1343)
- Koepp, M. J.et al. 1998. Evidence for striatal dopamine release during a video game [Letter]. Nature 393(6682), pp. 266-268. (10.1038/30498)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Sahakian, B. J. 1998. The cognitive psychopharmacology of Alzheimer's disease: Focus on cholinergic systems. Neurochemical Research 23(5), pp. 787-794. (10.1023/A:1022419712453)
- Lawrence, A. D., Sahakian, B. J. and Robbins, T. W. 1998. Cognitive functions and corticostriatal circuits: insights from Huntington's disease. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2(10), pp. 379-388. (10.1016/S1364-6613(98)01231-5)
1996
- Lawrence, A. D.et al. 1996. Executive and mnemonic functions in early Huntington's disease. Brain 119(5), pp. 1633-1645. (10.1093/brain/119.5.1633)
- Lawrence, A. D. and Sahakian, B. J. 1996. The neuropsychology of fronto-striatal dementias. In: Woods, R. T. ed. Handbook of the Clinical Psychology of Aging. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 243-265.
1995
- Lawrence, A. D. and Sahakian, B. J. 1995. Alzheimer Disease, Attention, and the Cholinergic System. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders 9(S2), pp. 37-49.
Research topics and related papers
The Neuroscience of Natural Rewards: Relevance to Addictive Drugs
Key recent research findings include:
(1) Evidence for distinct neural coding of pleasant and disgusting foods in insular cortex and pallidum of humans:
(from Beaver et al. EJN, 2007). Ongoing work is examining the neural correlates of desire and disgust for food, and how these relate to traits like impulsivity, eating disorders and obesity. In addition, we are examining the extent to which systems that evolved to mediate the disgust response to foods have been co-opted to mediate more complex forms of socio-moral disgust, and how food reward systems link with other positive emotions.
(2) How do drugs of abuse hijack brain 'reward’ systems? The controversial incentive-sensitization theory argues that drugs of abuse sensitize brain mesolimbic systems of incentive salience ('wanting’), leading to compulsive intake. By studying a rare group of individuals with Parkinson’s disease who develop compulsive drug use (and other impulse control problems), we provided the first evidence that addiction could result from such an incentive sensitization mechanism:
(from Evans et al. Ann Neurol, 2006). We are currently examining the extent to which such mechanisms can be applied to other addictive and impulse-control disorders (eg. gambling and binge eating induced by dopaminergic drugs).
(3) The neurobiology of negative urgency. Urgency (the tendency to distressed-based impulsivity) is a key risk trait for addiction and impulse control. We have recently demonstrated (Boy et al. Biol Psychiatry) that individual differences in urgency are Predicted by levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA in the DLPFC. This provides novel insights into the role of GABA in various psychiatric disorders, including alcohol addiction. (new figure to insert).
Prosocial Neuroscience
We are interested in the neural mechanisms underpinning individual differences in empathic concern and empathic accuracy, and how these link to prosociality and caring.
For example, we have shown that so-called 'mirror neuron’ systems at best play a limited role in empathy – probably limited to action-oriented aspects of emotion understanding (see e.g. Tavares et al., 2010 and von dem Hagen et al., 2009). Ongoing work is establishing distinct neural systems for empathic concern (ventral PFC) vs. empathic accuracy (insula).
(from von dem Hagen et al., 2009).
Funding
- Parkinson’s disease UK: Emotion Recognition in Parkinson’s disease
- Parkinson’s UK: Impulse Control Disorders in Parkinson’s disease
- Parkinson’s UK: A trial to assess the safety and efficacy of intermittent putamenal GDNF infusions administered via convection enhanced delivery (CED) in Parkinson’s disease
Research group
- Dr Polly Peers (Postdoctoral fellow, based at MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge) () (Emotion Recognition in Parkinson’s disease; attentional control of emotional distraction
- Bonni Crawford (ESRC PhD student, Psychology, Cardiff University) (Social reward and punishment in the brain)
- Marcel Meyer (PhD student, Psychology, Cardiff University) (Cognitive control of emotional distraction)
- Jennifer Ware (PhD student, Wellcome Trust Integrative Neuroscience, Cardiff University) (Genomic imaging of smoking)
Research collaborators
Cardiff University/Internal
- Petroc Sumner/Fred Boy/John Evans (GABA and impulsivity)
- David Linden (Dopamine and reward, fMRI studies of craving regulation)
- Kim Graham (fMRI/DTI studies of face processing and empathy)
- Marianne van den Bree (MRC CNGG) (Genetics of addiction)
External
- Prof Marcus Munafo (Bristol) (fMRI of smoking, anxiety)
- Dr Andy Calder (MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge)
- Dr Sadaf Farooqi (Clinical Biochemistry, Cambridge University)
- Profs Paola Piccini & Andrew Lees (London) (Impulse control disorders in Parkinson’s disease)
- Dr Katy Tapper (Psychology, London)
- Dr Natalia Lawrence (Exeter) (fMRI of food reward and self-control)
- Huw Morris (MRC CNGG) (Genetics of impulsivity in Parkinson’s disease)
Supervision
Postgraduate research interests
I’m particularly interested at the moment in supervising projects on (1) the neuroscience of 'wanting’ and 'liking’, and its link to addiction and obesity; (2) emotion-based dispositions to rash action (Urgency); (3) disgust; and (4) The neurobiology of social reward and punishment and links to prosocial behaviour and empathy.
If you are interested in applying for a PhD, or for further information regarding my postgraduate research, please contact me directly (contact details available on the 'Overview' page), or submit a formal application.
Current students
Bonni Crawford. Bonni is interested in social neuroscience, especially social reward and punishment mechanisms.
Marcel Meyer (jointly supervised with Natalia Lawrence). Marcel works on the cognitive control of emotional distraction using psychophysical techniques, TMS and fMRI, mainly focusing on stop-signal type tasks.
Jennifer Ware (jointly supervised with Marianne van den Bree, Marcus Munafo). Jennifer works on genomic approaches to smoking including fMRI studies
Past projects
Previous students
Paula Tavares (jointly supervised with Phil Barnard, MRC CBU). Paula worked on the neural coding of emotion from motion cues using fMRI and patient-based lesion studies. She is now a postdoctoral autism researcher in Portugal.
Sean O’Sullivan (jointly with Andrew Lees, UCL). Sean worked on impulse control disorders in Parkinson’s disease. He has now returned to clinical neurology.
Andrew Evans (jointly with Andrew Lees, UCL). Andrew worked on compulsive drug use in Parkinson’s disease. He is now a senior neurologist in Australia.
Anthony Cox (jointly supervised with Andy Calder, MRC CBU). Anthony worked on the neural correlates of cross-modal integration of emotion signals from face and voice. He now works in the media.
Barney Dunn (jointly supervised with Tim Dalgeish, MRC CBU). Barney worked on interoceptive awareness and its relation to decision-making and emotion experience in health and depression. He is currently an MRC scientist at MRC CBU, Cambridge.
Ines Goerendt (Imperial College London). Ines worked on the neural correlates of reward and habit processing in Parkinson’s disease using PET. She is currently training to be a neurosurgeon in Germany.