projects
As a behavioural scientist I try to elaborate quantitative descriptions of well-defined behavioural data, link these to underlying neurobiology and to cognitive models that can be experimentally falsified.”
My goal is to search for common mechanisms that support vastly different behaviours across species, including humans, using an integrative and comparative approach to behaviour and cognition. Currently I have 5 main areas of active research:
1️⃣ exploring dogs' and wolves' elementary learning and memory abilities, assuming these are the building blocks underlying more complex feats (e.g., Ribas-Blanco*, Monteiro* et al., bioRxiv, 2023);
2️⃣ developing new open-source systems for behavioural and cognitive testing of different animal species (e.g., Ajuwon et al., Behavior Research Methods, 2023);
3️⃣ studying how animals acquire and use different types of environmental information (e.g., uncertainty avoidance), ultimately seeking to find behavioural and cognitive regularities among distant taxa (e.g., Ajuwon et al., Animal Cognition, 2022);
4️⃣ foraging of wild-caught (then released) European starlings, merging concepts and techniques from psychology, behavioural ecology and microeconomics to investigate decision-making using laboratory-controlled protocols (e.g., Monteiro et al., PLOS Biology, 2020);
5️⃣ neurobiology of temporal perception and decision-making in rodents: combining two alternative forced choice tasks with electrophysiological recordings, optogenetics and localized temperature manipulations (e.g., Monteiro*, Rodrigues*, Pexirra* et al., Nature Neuroscience, 2023).
2️⃣ developing new open-source systems for behavioural and cognitive testing of different animal species (e.g., Ajuwon et al., Behavior Research Methods, 2023);
3️⃣ studying how animals acquire and use different types of environmental information (e.g., uncertainty avoidance), ultimately seeking to find behavioural and cognitive regularities among distant taxa (e.g., Ajuwon et al., Animal Cognition, 2022);
4️⃣ foraging of wild-caught (then released) European starlings, merging concepts and techniques from psychology, behavioural ecology and microeconomics to investigate decision-making using laboratory-controlled protocols (e.g., Monteiro et al., PLOS Biology, 2020);
5️⃣ neurobiology of temporal perception and decision-making in rodents: combining two alternative forced choice tasks with electrophysiological recordings, optogenetics and localized temperature manipulations (e.g., Monteiro*, Rodrigues*, Pexirra* et al., Nature Neuroscience, 2023).