Photo of the Old Joe clock tower at the University of Birmingham. Logo of University of Birmingham. Banner for the Mechanistic Basis of Foraging Conference, 3rd to the 5th of November, Edgbaston Park Hotel, University of Birmingham

Conference Programme

Monday 3rd November

Time   Session                                                                                           
18:00 - 19:30 Welcome Reception and Posters                                                                                                                                 

Tuesday 4th November

Time Session
8:30 - 9:15 Registration and Refreshments   
9:15 - 9:30Opening Remarks
9:30 - 10:15 Keynote Speaker:
Background reward rate and effort shape behavioural and neural signatures of learning and decision-making in human foraging
Miriam Klein-Flugge, University of Oxford
10:15 - 11:00      Blitz Talks:

  • A progressive ratio task with costly resets reveals adaptive effort-delay tradeoffs
    Zeena Rivera, University of California, Los Angeles
  • The Effort Based Forage Task: An Ethological Behavioural Test for Assessing Motivation and Apathy-related Behaviour in Mice
    Megan Jackson, University of Bristol
  • Computational mechanisms underlying how humans adapt their foraging choices to the average effort of the environment
    Emma Scholey, University of Birmingham
11:00 - 11:30 Refreshment Break
11:30 - 12:00 Navigational strategies for foraging: insights from ants and flies
Hannah Haberkern, University of Würzburg
12:00 - 12:30 Stochastic choice drives variability in patch foraging decisions across species
Mark Humphries, University of Nottingham
12:30 - 13:00 The behavioral mechanisms underlying human social foraging dynamics in the wild
Alexander Schakowski, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
13:00 - 14:00  Lunch
14:00 - 14:30 Brain-wide dynamics of time-limited foraging strategies in changing environments
Jennifer Li, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
14:30 - 15:00 Aeon: an open-source platform to study the neural basis of ethological behaviours over naturalistic timescales
Dario Campagner, University College London
15:00 - 15:30 Foraging in Naturalistic Environments: The Role of Threat and Social Context
Toby Wise, King's College London
15:30 - 16:00 Refreshment Break
16:00 - 16:45 Keynote Speaker:
Neural basis of prey-pursuit behavior
Benjamin Hayden, Rice University
16:45 - 17:20 Discussion Session
17:20 Close
18:00 - Late Conference Dinner

Wednesday 5th November

Time Session
9:00 - 9:30 Registration and Refreshments 
9:30 - 10:15 Keynote Speaker:
What we might learn from mistakes: using foraging decisions in wild hummingbirds as a ‘model’ system
Susan Healy, University of St. Andrews
10:15 - 11:00       Blitz Talks:

  • Optimal foraging under structured replenishment
    Roxana Zerati, Max Planck Institute For Biological Cybernetics
  • Foragax: Large-Scale Agent-Based Modeling of Adaptive Multi-Agent Foraging
    Siddharth Chaturvedi, Radboud University
  • Continuous dynamics of cooperation and competition in social decision-making
    Darius Lewen, MPI for Dynamics and Self-organization
11:00 - 11:30 Refreshment Break
11:30 - 12:00 Foraging: From Food to Inquiry
David Barack, University of Pennsylvania & Lingnan University
12:00 - 12:30 Naturalistic foraging tasks in freely moving rodents for mechanistic and neuronal insights into learning, decision-making, and movement
David Robbe, Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:00 Neural Circuit Basis for Foraging Under Conflict
Carolina Rezaval, University of Birmingham
14:00 - 14:30 Exploration Under Uncertainty: Computational Insights from Childhood Adversity and Adolescence
Nicholas Furl, Royal Holloway University of London
14:30 - 15:00 Emotions and individual differences in naturalistic tasks
Jacquie Scholl, Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre
15:00 - 15:30 Refreshment Break
15:30 - 16:00 Title TBC
Aaron M. Bornstein, University of California
16:00 - 16:30 Humans forage for reward in classic reinforcement learning tasks
Becket Ebitz, University of Montreal
16:30 Closing remarks

As part of the organisation of this conference, The University of Birmingham is collecting income via registration fees and sponsorships on behalf of the Mechanistic Basis of Foraging organising committtee.


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