Wolfram Schultz

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Wolfram Schultz
Alma materUniversity of Heidelberg (MD)
University of Fribourg (PhD)
Known forresearch that demonstrates that dopamine neurons signal errors in reward prediction
AwardsBrain Prize, Golden Brain Award, Gruber Prize in Neuroscience, & Karl Spencer Lashley Award
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
Websitewww.wolframschultz.org

Wolfram Schultz, FRS is a German professor of Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge known for his research that dopamine neurons signal errors in reward prediction.[1][2][3]

Life and career[edit]

Schultz received his medical degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1972 and his PhD in Physiology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.[3][4] He then completed three postdoctoral research fellowships: with the German neurophysiologist Otto Cruetzfeld at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany, Australian neurophysiologist John C. Eccles at State University of New York at Buffalo in the United States, and the neuropsychopharmacist Urban Ungerstedt at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.[3] Schultz moved to the University of Cambridge in 2001, where he is currently Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Neuroscience.[5][6]

Research[edit]

During the 1980s and 1990s, Schultz was experimenting with macaque monkeys when he found that dopamine neurons in their basal ganglia increased in activity after they were given a reward.[6] This led to the discovery for which he is best known: dopamine neurons signal errors in reward prediction (the difference between the reward an animal expects and the reward it actually receives).[6]

Honours and awards[edit]

He won the Golden Brain Award in 2002, The Brain Prize in 2017, the Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2018, the Karl Spencer Lashley Award in 2019, and has an h-index of 101.[4][7]

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and past president of the European Brain and Behaviour Society.[3]

Selected publications[edit]

  • Schultz W, Dayan P, Montague PR (1997). "A neural substrate of prediction and reward". Science. 275 (5306): 1593–9. doi:10.1126/science.275.5306.1593. PMID 9054347.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Schultz W (1998). "Predictive reward signal of dopamine neurons". J Neurophysiol. 80 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1152/jn.1998.80.1.1. PMID 9658025.
  • Schultz W (2002). "Getting formal with dopamine and reward". Neuron. 36 (2): 241–63. doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00967-4. PMID 12383780.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Wolfram Schultz". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
  2. ^ "Wolfram Schultz". www.wolframschultz.org. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
  3. ^ a b c d "Wolfram Schultz | Gruber Foundation". gruber.yale.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
  4. ^ a b "Wolfram Schultz | The Lundbeck Foundation". lundbeckfonden.com. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
  5. ^ "Prof Wolfram Schultz FRS". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  6. ^ a b c "Wolfram Schultz". Gruber Foundation. Yale University. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  7. ^ "Wolfram Schultz". scholar.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-10-23.