Ethan Bromberg-Martin

Senior Scientist
Department of Neuroscience
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Email:

CV: pdf

I study how the brain learns what things are good and what things are bad, and how it uses this knowledge to banish the bad things and gather the good things! I believe that learning about the world is not simply a passive process of parameter estimation and error-reduction, but an active delight of exploration and discovery. Why else be a scientist?

Upcoming appearances

Talk at the conference on Bridging Diverse Perspectives on the Mechanistic Basis of Foraging [site]
Janelia Farms, Ashburn, VA
February, 25-28, 2024

Talk at the conference on Mechanisms of Foraging and Exploration
Lyon, France
July 2-5, 2024

Past appearances

Symposium Talk at the Society for Neuroeconomics [site]
Vancouver, Canada
October 13-15, 2023

Talk at the Gordon Conference on Catecholamines [site]
Castelldefels, Spain
August 13-18, 2023

Neural circuitry of information seeking

Talk at the Cosyne [site] workshop on "Computational mechanisms underlying decision uncertainty and confidence in brain and behavior"
Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada
March 14, 2023

Integrating information and reward into subjective value: humans, monkeys, and the lateral habenula

Talk at the nanosymposium on "Neuronal Mechanisms of Decision Making"
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA
November 13, 2022 (Room SDCC 5)

More...

Publications

		Dorsal raphe neurons signal integrated value during multi-attribute decision-making by Yang-Yang Feng, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, and Ilya E. Monosov preprint on bioRxiv (2023) [html] [pdf]

		Representations of information value in mouse orbitofrontal cortex during information seeking by Jennifer J. Bussell, Ryan P. Badman, Christian D. Márton, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Larry F. Abbott, Kanaka Rajan, and Richard Axel preprint on bioRxiv (2023) [html] [pdf]

		A neural mechanism for conserved value computations integrating information and rewards by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin^, Yang-Yang Feng^, Takaya Ogasawara, J. Kael White, Kaining Zhang, and Ilya E. Monosov ( equal contribution)* Nature Neuroscience (in press) preprint on bioRxiv (2022) [html] [pdf]

		Laser stimulation of the skin for quantitative study of decision-making and motivation by Julia Pai^, Takaya Ogasawara^, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Kei Ogasawara, Robert W. Gereau, and Ilya E. Monosov ( equal contribution)* Cell Reports Methods (2022), volume 2, issue 9, 100296. [pubmed] [full text]

		Surprise and recency in novelty detection in the primate brain by Kaining Zhang, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Fatih Sogukpinar, Kim Kocher, and Ilya E. Monosov Current Biology (2022), volume 32, issue 10, pp. 2160-2173. [pubmed] [full text]

		How the value of the environment controls persistence in visual search by Michael R. Traner, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, and Ilya E. Monosov PLoS Computational Biology (2021), volume 17, issue 12, e1009662. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf]

		A prefrontal network integrates preferences for advance information about uncertain rewards and punishments by Ahmad Jezzini, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin^, Lucas R. Trambaiolli^, Suzanne N. Haber, and Ilya E. Monosov ( equal contribution)* Neuron (2021), volume 109, issue 14, pp 2339-2352. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf]

		Neural circuitry of information seeking by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin and Ilya E. Monosov Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences (2020), volume 35, pp 62-70. [pubmed] [psyarxiv preprint] [full text]

		The value of beliefs by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin and Tali Sharot Neuron (2020), volume 106, issue 4, pp 561-565 [pubmed] [full text] [pdf]

		A neural network for information seeking by J. Kael White^, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin^, Sarah R. Heilbronner, Kaining Zhang, Julia Pai, Suzanne N. Haber, and Ilya E. Monosov ( co-first authors)* Nature Communications (2019), volume 10, issue 1, pp 5168. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplementary information]

		Valuation of knowledge and ignorance in mesolimbic reward circuitry by Caroline J. Charpentier, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, and Tali Sharot PNAS (2018), volume 115, issue 31, pp E7255-E7264. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplementary information]

		Orbitofrontal cortex uses distinct codes for different choice attributes in decisions motivated by curiosity by Tommy C. Blanchard, Benjamin Y. Hayden^, and Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin^ ( co-senior authors)* Neuron (2015), volume 85, issue 3, pp 602-614. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf + supplementary information]

		Lateral habenula neurons signal errors in the prediction of reward information by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin and Okihide Hikosaka Nature Neuroscience (2011), volume 14, issue 9, pp. 1209-1216. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplementary information] News and Views by Niv and Chan: [full text] [pdf]

		Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Masayuki Matsumoto, and Okihide Hikosaka Neuron (2010), volume 68, issue 5, pp. 815-834 Review article [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] Cited by: [faculty of 1000]

		Multiple timescales of memory in lateral habenula and dopamine neurons by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Masayuki Matsumoto, Hiroyuki Nakahara, and Okihide Hikosaka Neuron (2010), volume 67, issue 3, pp. 499-510. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplemental data] Cited by: [faculty of 1000]

		Distinct tonic and phasic anticipatory activity in lateral habenula and dopamine neurons by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Masayuki Matsumoto, and Okihide Hikosaka Neuron (2010), volume 67, issue 1, pp. 144-155. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplemental data]

		A pallidus-habenula-dopamine pathway signals inferred stimulus values by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Masayuki Matsumoto, Simon Hong, and Okihide Hikosaka Journal of Neurophysiology (2010), volume 104, issue 2, pp. 1068-1076. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf]

		Coding of task reward value in the dorsal raphe nucleus by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Okihide Hikosaka, and Kae Nakamura Journal of Neuroscience (2010), volume 30, issue 18, pp. 6262-6272. [pubmed] [full text] [pdf]

		Midbrain dopamine neurons signal preference for advance information about upcoming rewards by Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin and Okihide Hikosaka Neuron (2009), volume 63, issue 1, pp. 119-126 [pubmed] [full text] [pdf] [supplemental data] Cited by: [faculty of 1000] [nature] [nature reviews neuroscience]

		New insights on the subcortical representation of reward by Okihide Hikosaka, Ethan Bromberg-Martin, Simon Hong, and Masayuki Matsumoto Current Opinion in Neurobiology (2008), volume 18, issue 2, pp. 203-208 Review article [pubmed]

Background


	Ph.D. in Neuroscience (2009) from Brown University. Thesis: "The Role of Dopamine in Information-Seeking" (Advisor: Okihide Hikosaka) I did my Ph.D. thesis work at the National Eye Institute, as part of the Graduate Partnership Program with the National Institutes of Health. Bachelor of Science in Computational Biology (2005) from Brown University.

Links


	My academic ancestry at NeuroTree.org. Affiliations: Society for Neuroscience. Conferences: Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) Association for Psychological Science (APS)