Mansouri Lab research
About Associate Professor Farshad Alizadeh Mansouri
Farshad Mansouri obtained BSc. In Biology (Zoology), MSc. In Medical Physiology and PhD in Neurophysiology. He joined Cognitive Brain Mapping laboratory at RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Wako, Japan) in 1997. He completed his post-doctoral studies (1997-2002) and then became a staff scientist at RIKEN Brain Science institute (2002-2012). He joined the Physiology Department at Monash University in October 2012.
Current positions:
- He is the Director of Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. Techniques used in his laboratory include behavioural studies and electrophysiology in animal models and psychophysical and brain stimulation studies in humans.
- He is a Visiting Scientist at RIKEN Institute in Japan and supervise an international joint project between Monash University and RIKEN Centre for Brain Science.
- He is an associate investigator at ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function.
His research has been focused on understanding the role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive flexibility and executive control of goal-directed behaviour. His cross-species studies have led to influential findings including two papers in Science magazine (2007 and 2009); three in Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2009, 2017, 2020); PNAS (2015); Journal of Neuroscience (2006, 2014a, 2014b); Cerebral Cortex (2020); two articles in American Journal of Primatology (2019, 2021), which is the highest ranked journal in primatology; and recent articles in Nature Communications (2024) and Brain (2024), which is one of the most influential journals in neurology and clinical neuroscience.
Our research
Current projects
- Understanding the role prefrontal cortex in cognitive flexibility.
- Understanding the role of anterior cingulate cortex in executive control of goal-directed behaviour.
- Studying the modulatory effects of various contextual/environmental factors on decision process.
Visit Associate Professor Mansouri's Monash research profile to see a full listing of current projects.
1. Behavioural and inactivation studies in the context of cognitive tasks to assess executive functions in humans and animal models.
Figure 1: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The WCST is a test of cognitive flexibility in implementing abstract rules (Mansouri et al. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2009).
2. Examining the neuronal mechanisms underlying executive control of behaviour.
Figure 2: Activity of a single neuron recorded in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex while subjects perform a computerized analogue of the WCST. The subjects had to shift between colour and shape rules. Activity of this prefrontal cortex neuron conveyed information about the relevant rule. Bar graph shows the mean activity during Sample presentation period (Mansouri et al. Journal of Neuroscience 2006; Science 2007).
3. Developing theoretical models to describe the neural architecture of cognitive control in primates.
Figure 3: Mansouri et al. have recently proposed a model to describe the contribution of prefrontal cortical regions to the executive control of behaviour (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2017).
Research activities
In a changing environment, we need to select and update the most appropriate behaviour-guiding rules to achieve our goals. We have been studying the neural substrate and underlying mechanisms of cognitive control and flexibility. Techniques used in our laboratory include behavioural studies and electrophysiology (single-neuron recording) in animal models and psychophysical and brain stimulation studies in humans. Almost all of our published papers have been focused on revealing the contribution of different medial frontal and prefrontal regions to cognitive flexibility in the context of cognitive tasks such as the WCST, Stroop and Stop task. We have shown dissociable role of these frontal regions in cognitive flexibility and control (Science 2007, 2009 PNAS 2015; Cerebral Cortex 2020).
Our behaviour and cognitive processes develop in a context, which might include various stimuli (such as background acoustic or emotional information). We are interested in understanding the effects of these contextual factors on cognitive functions. A better understanding of these factors and the way they influence brain function and behaviour will help us to develop rehabilitation and treatment approaches to address cognitive deficits in various neuropsychological disorders.
The parallel development of techniques and tasks and evidence-based theoretical models have been the main highlight of our research activities. Our evidence-based theoretical models have been published in major neuroscience journals such as Trends in Neurosciences (Mansouri et al. 2017) and Nature Reviews Neuroscience (Mansouri et al. 2009, 2017, 2020).
Collaborations
We collaborate with many scientists and research organisations around the world. Click on the map to see the details for each of these collaborators (dive into specific publications and outputs by clicking on the dots).
International collaboration
Farshad has successfully completed several international joint collaborative studies between RIKEN and the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (started in 2003). This fruitful collaboration has continued to involve Monash since 2013.
Collaborative studies within Monash
We are currently conducting collaborative studies that involve investigators at the Department of Physiology, School of Psychology and the Department of Physiotherapy.