Qualifications

BSc Psychology (Royal Holloway, University of London); MSc (Reading); PhD (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Academic background

I completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience and postdoc at Royal Holloway, University of London, before moving to Oxford first as a postdoc, then becoming a BBSRC Future Leader Fellow. I am now a BBSRC David Phillips Fellow and University Research Lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN) at the University of Oxford.

Research interests

Why do things feel effortful? Why do we get fatigued? Why can motivation become impaired through ageing and in brain disorders? Our group examines the role of systems in the brain, their computations and the contributions of different brain chemicals underlying healthy and disrupted motivation.

Featured publications

Lockwood, P.L., Hamonet, M., Zhang, S., Ratnavel, A., Salmony, F., Husain, M., & Apps., M.A.J (2017). Prosocial apathy when helping others becomes too much effort. Nature Human Behaviour, 1.

Chong, T-J. T.**, Apps, M.A.J.**, Sillence, A., Giehl, K., Grima, L., & Husain, M. (2017). Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying subjective motivation of effort costs. PLoS Biology, 15(2): e1002598. ** equal contributors.

Apps, M.A.J, Rushworth, M.F.S., Chang, S.W.C. (2016). The anterior cingulate gyrus and social cognition: tracking the motivation of others. Neuron.

Apps, M.A.J., Lesage, E., & Ramnani, N. (2015). Vicarious Reinforcement Learning Signals When Instructing Others. Journal of Neuroscience.

Apps M.A.J., & Ramnani, N. (2014). The anterior cingulate gyrus signals the net-value of others’ rewards. Journal of Neuroscience.

Apps, M.A.J. & Tsakiris, M (2014). The free-energy self: A predictive coding account of self-recognition. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews.