Vincent Costa, Ph.D. (he/him)

  • Assistant Professor, Oregon National Primate Research Center

Biography

Dr. Vincent Costa was an assistant professor in the Division of Neuroscience at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. He moved his lab to Emory University in Atlanta, GA in July 2024. Dr. Costa's research at OHSU focused on using computational approaches from reinforcement learning and decision making to understand the function of the mesolimbic circuits in emotion, cognition, and disease. He took a multidisciplinary approach combining computational modeling of behavior, neurophysiology, neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, and chemogenetic methodologies in rhesus macaques and humans. 

Education and training

  • Degrees

    • B.S., 2004, Syracuse University
    • Ph.D., 2011, University of Florida

  • Fellowship

    • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Laboratory of Neuropsychology, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, 2011-2018

Memberships and associations:

  • Society for Neuroscience
  • American College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Areas of interest

  • Reinforcement learning
  • Motivation and emotion
  • Systems neuroscience

Additional information

Publications

Selected publications

  • Costa VD, Mitz A, and Averbeck BB (2019). Subcortical substrates of explore-exploit decisions in primates. Neuron, 103, 533-545. PMID: 31196672.
  • Averbeck BB and Costa VD (2017). Motivational neural circuits underlying reinforcement learning. Nature Neuroscience, 20, 505-512. PMID: 28352111
  • Costa VD, Dal Monte O, Lucas DR, Murray EA, and Averbeck BB (2016). Amygdala and ventral striatum make distinct contributions to reinforcement learning. Neuron, 92, 505-517. PMID: 27720488
  • Costa VD, Tran VL, Turchi J, and Averbeck BB (2015). Reversal learning and dopamine: a Bayesian perspective. Journal of Neuroscience, 35, 2407-2416. PMID: 25673835
  • Costa VD, Tran VL, and Averbeck BB (2014). Dopamine modulates novelty seeking during decision making. Behavioral Neuroscience, 128, 556-66

Publications