Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Computational Neuroscience), The University of Queensland (2012)
Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Systems), The University of Queensland (2002)
Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), The University of Queensland (2002)

Research interests

I seek to better understand the nature of the computations underlying goal driven behaviours and their interaction with spatial and episodic memory, and how such computations are supported by their underlying neural architectures. My methodological foundations are in computational modelling; by building a model constrained by empirical evidence from both behavioural and physiological studies, and attempting to use the model to predict both behavioural and physiological results, I aim to find the elements of the system that are inconsistent with, or absent from, our theoretical understanding of the system.

PUBLICATIONs

Hart, G., Burton, T. J., Nolan, C. R., & Balleine, B. W. (2024). Striatal dopamine release tracks the relationship between actions and their consequences. Cell Reports, 43(3), 113828. Read More.

Ferguson, L. A., Matamales, M., Nolan, C., Balleine, B. W., & Bertran-Gonzalez, J. (2024). Adaptation of sequential action benefits from timing variability related to lateral basal ganglia circuitry. iScience. Read More.

Park, J., Lingawi, N. W., Crimmins, B. E., Gladding, J. M., Nolan, C. R., Burton, T. J., & Laurent, V. (2024). Stimulus–outcome associations are required for the expression of specific Pavlovian-instrumental transfer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 50(1), 25–38. Read More.

McFadyen J, Nolan CR, Pinocy E, Buteri D, Baumann O (2021) Doorways do not always cause forgetting: A multimodal investigation. BMC Psychol., 9(1). Read More.

Nolan CR, Cheung A, Baumann O (2018) Evidence against the detectability of a hippocampal place code using functional magnetic resonance imaging. eNeuro, 5(4). Read More.

Ball D, Kliese R, Windels F, Nolan CR, Stratton P, Sah P, Wiles J (2014) Rodent Scope: A User-Configurable Digital Wireless Telemetry System for Freely Behaving Animals. PLoS ONE, 9: e89949. Read More.

Nolan CR, Wyeth G, Milford M, Wiles J (2011) The race to learn: Spike timing and STDP can coordinate learning and recall in CA3. Hippocampus, 21: 647–660. Read More.

Wiles J, Ball D, Heath S, Nolan CR, Stratton P (2010) Spike-Time Robotics: A Rapid Response Circuit for a Robot that Seeks Temporally Varying Stimuli. Australian Journal of Intelligent Information Processing Systems, 11(1).