Alireza Modirshanechi

EPFL IC IINFCOM LCN1
AI 2101 (Bâtiment AI)
Station 19
1015 Lausanne

Office: AI 2101
EPFLICIINFCOMLCN1

Website: https://lcn.epfl.ch/

Expertise

Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience
Reinforcement Learning
Statistical Learning and Bayesian Inference
I am a computer science Ph.D. student at EPFL working under the supervision of Wulfram Gerstner. I work on computational models of learning and decision-making in the brain with a focus on (i) mathematical definitions of surprise and novelty, (ii) their contributions to human exploratory and adaptive behavior, and (iii) their manifestation in physiological measurements. I use Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, and information theory to develop computational models which I test against behavioral and physiological data (EEG, MEG, fMRI, and single neuron recordings).

Prior to joining EPFL, I received my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran. During the last two years of my study, I worked on several research projects and completed my B.Sc. thesis under the supervision of Hamid Aghajan. My projects were mainly on (i) EEG-based decoding of surprise and (ii) fMRI-based classification of visual and auditory stimuli. My thesis won the 2nd best thesis award in the annual departmental distinguished thesis competition.
You can find my random scientific notes and educational articles here in my Medium account, and more information about me on my personal website.

Selected publications

The curse of optimism: a persistent distraction by novelty

A. Modirshanechi, W. Lin, H.A. Xu, M.H. Herzog, W. Gerstner
Published in Preprint on bioRxiv, 2023 in

Surprise and novelty in the brain

A. Modirshanechi, S. Becker, J. Brea, W. Gerstner
Published in Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2023 in

A taxonomy of surprise definitions

A. Modirshanechi, J. Brea, W. Gerstner
Published in Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 2022 in

Novelty is not Surprise: Human exploratory and adaptive behavior in sequential decision-making

H.A. Xu*, A. Modirshanechi*, M.P. Lehmann, W. Gerstner, M.H. Herzog
Published in PLoS Computational Biology, 2021 in

Learning in Volatile Environments with the Bayes Factor Surprise

V. Liakoni*, A. Modirshanechi*, W. Gerstner, J. Brea
Published in Neural Computation, 2021 in

Trial-by-trial surprise-decoding model for visual and auditory binary oddball tasks

A. Modirshanechi, M.M. Kiani, H. Aghajan
Published in NeuroImage, 2019 in

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Full list of publications
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Posts on Medium
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