Madeline Goldfarb graduated with a degree in neuroscience from Pitzer College in 2021. While at Pitzer, Madeline conducted research in the Reward, Affect, and Decision-Making Lab and was interested in using EEG to study the neural correlates of reward processing.   As an Amgen Scholar at UCLA, Madeline is working in Dr. Alicia Izquierdo’s lab in the Department of Psychology. The Izquierdo Lab studies the mechanisms and neural substrates of flexible learning and reward-guided decision making, focusing on the aspects of cognitive flexibility that are disrupted in various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Madeline’s project surrounds implementing reinforcement learning models to capture the learning behavior of rodents completing a probabilistic reversal learning paradigm as a measure of cognitive flexibility. The project explores the importance of task modality in reversal learning paradigms by modeling spatial and stimulus-driven learning behavior. The models also support an investigation into the cortical contributions of various brain regions in task-specific reversal learning by expanding upon existing research using chemogenetic manipulations. Overall, understanding the mechanisms and neural substrates of reversal learning offers clinical significance with respect to intervening in disrupted cognitive flexibility.   Madeline would like to thank Dr. Alicia Izquierdo and Claudia Aguirre for their mentorship and support as well as the Amgen Foundation for providing this opportunity.