Nils Kolling deciphers decision-making

Nils Kolling, Inserm researcher at the Stem-cell and Brain Research Institute (SBRI) in Lyon, is studying the brain mechanisms of motivation and planning that guide our decisions. He has received a substantial European Research Council Starting Grant for his work to describe them and develop computer simulation models. Research that could ultimately be of service to the field of psychiatry.

Nils Kolling has made the right choices. Having spent years studying decision-making processes, he went on to train in physiology and psychology at the University of Oxford in the UK. Combining medicine and research, it opened the doors to his field of choice: studying the mechanisms of motivation and associated behaviours. 'I've always been intrigued by the brain processes that guide our choices,' he recalls. Also at Oxford, Kolling obtained his PhD in Neuroscience in the Department of Experimental Psychology, followed by a research position. He then began to decipher the neural mechanisms of decision-making using different techniques for analysing brain activity, in collaboration with other teams working on animal models.

During those years, Kolling made at least two important encounters: one with his future wife who was working in the same areas as him, and the other with a French colleague also working at Oxford whose descriptions of the mechanisms of French research sparked a turning point in his career. By that point, 2018, Kolling had been at Oxford for over a decade. While he had a profound appreciation for his laboratory where he had learned so much, he felt that it was maybe time to move on and form his own team.

From Oxford to Lyon

Stay? Or leave? That was the question for Kolling, who was tempted by the French system described by his colleague. 'He referred to a certain level of academic freedom and a significant amount of laboratory time compared to that devoted to teaching. At Oxford, it was quite the opposite. And our scientific directions had to produce a rapid return on investment in terms of results and publications, so that we could hope to get our funding renewed every three years.' More time for research, openness to a certain amount of risk and more room for creativity: this all influenced Kolling's decision to try his luck in France, where his application to the Stem-cell and Brain Research Institute (SBRI) in Lyon was accepted.

Upon arriving in Lyon in 2022, he set up his team, Ecological Cognition and Neurocomputation, to study the entire decision-making process over time, in a global context. 'We want to understand how the human brain implements decision-making and plans reward-guided choices based on cognitive and environmental evolutions, such as changes in the knowledge associated with this choice or a modification of the rewards expected, he describes.What interests us is really to understand what happens in real life.' With this in mind, the laboratory is developing digital games that collect data on the players' choices. Combined with brain imaging, these data will be used to precisely describe the brain mechanisms implemented during decision-making.

Europe as research accelerator

To accelerate his research, Kolling set up FORAGINGCORTEX - a project selected in 2022 to receive a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant of €1.6 million over five years. 'This grant is a strong recognition of the quality of our previous research, the relevance of the theme and the promises to improve knowledge in this field,' he believes. The project will seek to identify the key elements of complex, intelligent and adaptive behaviour. Its ultimate goal is to build models in silico (i.e. using computers), which are capable of associating decision-making behaviours with the brain processes they involve. Ultimately, the entirety of the research by Kolling and his team is expected to serve the field of psychiatry by gaining deeper insights into certain behaviours, for example in the case of obsessive-compulsive disorders or mood disorders, as well as the underlying mechanisms. By deciphering these, 'it may even become possible to use neurostimulation to modulate aberrant decision-making,' he envisions.

Nils Kolling leads the Ecological Cognition and Neurocomputation team at the Stem-cell and Brain Research Institute (unit 1208 Inserm/Université Claude-Bernard - Lyon 1) in Bron, France.