Michael Shadlen

Michael Shadlen NIH (cropped)

Michael N. Shadlen is an American neuroscientist and a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University. He is known for his research on the neural mechanisms of decision making.

Early Life and Education

Michael Shadlen was born in New York City. He completed his undergraduate studies at Brown University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979. He then attended medical school at New York University School of Medicine, earning his M.D. in 1985. Shadlen also obtained a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the same institution.

Career

After completing his medical and doctoral training, Shadlen pursued postdoctoral research at the Stanford University School of Medicine under the mentorship of William T. Newsome. His work focused on the neural basis of visual perception and decision making.

Shadlen joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1995, where he continued his research on decision making in the brain. In 2012, he moved to Columbia University, where he is currently a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and a member of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.

Research

Shadlen's research primarily investigates how the brain makes decisions based on sensory information. He has made significant contributions to understanding the role of the parietal cortex in decision making. His work often involves recording the activity of individual neurons in the brains of non-human primates as they perform decision-making tasks.

One of Shadlen's notable contributions is the development of the drift-diffusion model of decision making, which describes how evidence is accumulated over time to reach a decision threshold. This model has been influential in both neuroscience and psychology.

Awards and Honors

Michael Shadlen has received numerous awards for his contributions to neuroscience, including:

• The Golden Brain Award from the Minerva Foundation in 2002.
• Election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
• The Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience in 2016.

Personal Life

Shadlen is married and has two children. He is also an accomplished jazz guitarist and often incorporates his love for music into his teaching and public lectures.

See Also

• Neuroscience
• Decision making
• Parietal cortex
• Drift-diffusion model