Faculty of Science

Dr Tobias Bast

Associate Professor, School of Psychology

tobias.bast@nottingham.ac.uk

Following a Diploma (comparable to an MSc) in Biochemistry (1999, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany) and a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience (2002, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich), Tobias held research positions at the University of Edinburgh (2003-2008), including a Caledonian Research Foundation Fellowship (2005-2008). In 2008, he was appointed as Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018.

Tobias’ research examines brain mechanisms of cognition and behaviour and of clinically relevant cognitive and behavioural impairments, with a focus on a brain circuit consisting of hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and subcortical sites. Methodologically, his main approach is to combine behavioural testing with neurobiological methods to analyse and manipulate brain function in rat models to determine causal brain-behaviour relations. To facilitate translation of findings to humans, he uses cross-species/translational methods that can be similarly used in rodent models and humans. More recently, he has also begun research with human participants and collaborations with mathematicians and computational neuroscientists to develop quantitative models of neuro-behavioural processes and to apply advanced analyses to his neuro-behavioural data..

TB 400x400
 

N3Centre Research Interests

Understanding neural mechanisms

 

 

Current projects

  • Medical Research Foundation, Hippocampus and auditory prediction (Co-I, with Joe Sollini).
  • BBSRC CASE Award (in partnership with b-neuro), Perineuronal nets and cognition

 

Key Publications

  • Maggi S, Hock RM, O'Neill M, Buckley MJ, Moran PM, Bast T, Sami M, Humphries MD (2024) Tracking subject's strategies in behavioural choice experiments at trial resolution. eLife 13:e86491

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  • Goncalves S, Hathway GJ, Woodhams SG, Chapman V, Bast T (2023) No evidence for cognitive impairment in an experimental rat model of knee osteoarthritis and associated chronic pain. J Pain 24(8): 1478-92, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2023.04.002 

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  • Tessereau C, O’Dea R, Coombes S, Bast T (2021) Reinforcement Learning approaches to hippocampus-dependant flexible spatial navigation. Brain Neurosci Adv 5, https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212820975634

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  • Bauer M, Buckley MG, Bast T (2021) Individual differences in theta-band oscillations in a spatial memory network revealed by EEG predict rapid place learning. Brain Neurosci Adv 5, https://doi.org/10.1177/23982128211002725

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  • Bast T, M Pezze, McGarrity S (2017) Cognitive deficits caused by prefrontal and hippocampal neural disinhibition. Br J Pharmacol 174(19): 3211–3225. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.13850.

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Faculty of Science

The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD