The interest of the brain and its functions has rapidly increased over the past years. Now, more people are curious to find more about this organ and naturally, there are many experiments that explore how the brain processes itself. On May 16, Dr. Soyoun Kim, who is currently working at KIST (Korean Institute of Science and Technology), held a special colloquium called “Discounted expected utility signals in the corticostriatal network during inter-temporal gambling” at Korea University (KU).

In the seminar, Dr. Kim explained about an experiment that she had carried out with colleagues and professors while she was attending Yale University. In this experiment, Dr. Kim explained the procedures of how monkeys were given a choice between two stimuli and depending on their choice, they were given delayed rewards. With the usage of this technique, Dr. Kim covered various aspects of decision-making such as how decision-making results change over time course in the brain. What seemed as a simple experiment with monkeys, Dr. Kim took us into a more complex world of the workings of the brain.

The colloquium was of a relaxed atmosphere compared to the intense contents of the seminar. The discussion at the end of the presentation was very interesting in that there were many questions from fellow professors. Youk Sung Bin (’12, International Studies) said, “Even though the contents was a little complex, the discussion at the end was interesting in that it showed how the conclusions from experiments could be applied to daily life. This definitely got me interested in neuroscience.”