Dr Emma Scholey

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Motivation and Social Neuroscience lab based at the Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham. I examine the behavioural, computational and neural mechanisms underlying human decision-making, learning and motivation.

I previously completed my PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham with Prof. Matthew Apps and Prof. Mark Humphries (University of Nottingham), funded by the Medical Research Council (IMPACT).

My research explores how people decide when to commit to an opportunity or forego it, especially when these opportunities require physical effort to pursue. I study the brain anatomy and dopaminergic mechanisms that contribute to how we learn about the opportunity costs of the environment, and how this influences our motivation.