Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 1998
Office: (603) 646-0610, Moore 259
Lab: (603) 646-0047, Moore B28
My laboratory focuses on decision making and executive function. We study how coherent decisions result from the interplay of many underlying brain systems, each with a different evolutionary history, and each vying to control our behavior. For example, how do higher-order brain areas, such as prefrontal cortex, inhibit lower-order structures when we have the urge to make impulsive decisions? Our laboratory approaches such questions with neurophysiological, behavioral and computational modeling methods, with the goal of understanding fundamental principles of brain function and developing biomedical treatments for dysfunctional decision-making in disorders ranging from substance abuse to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Chudasama, Y., Kralik, J. D., and Murray, E. A. (2007). Rhesus monkeys with orbital prefrontal cortex lesions can learn to inhibit prepotent responses in the reversed-reward contingency task. Cerebral Cortex, 17: 1154-1159.
Kralik, J. D. (2005). Inhibitory control and response selection in problem solving: How cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) overcome a bias for selecting the larger quantity of food. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119: 78-89.
Murray, E. A., Kralik, J. D., and Wise, S. P. (2005). Learning to inhibit prepotent responses: Successful performance by rhesus macaques on the reversed-contingency task. Animal Behaviour, 69: 991-998.
Santucci, D. M., Kralik, J. D., Lebedev, M. A., and Nicolelis, M. A. L. (2005). Frontal and parietal cortical ensembles predict single-trial muscle activity during reaching movements. European Journal of Neuroscience, 22: 1529-1540. (Cover article)
Lebedev, M. A., Messinger, A., Kralik, J. D., and Wise, S. P. (2004). Representation of attended versus remembered locations in prefrontal cortex. Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology, 2: 1919-1935.
Nicolelis, M. A. L., Dimitrov, D., Carmena, J., Crist, R., Lehew, G., Kralik, J. D., and Wise, S. P. (2003). Chronic, multi-site, multi-electrode recordings in macaque monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesUSA, 100: 11041-11046.
Kralik, J. D., Hauser, M. D., and Zimlicki, R. (2002). The relationship between problem solving and inhibitory control: Cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus) performance on a reversed contingency task. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 116: 39-50.
Kralik, J. D., Dimitrov, D. F., Krupa, D. J., Katz, D. B., Cohen, D., and Nicolelis, M. A. L. (2001). Techniques for chronic, multisite neuronal ensemble recordings in behaving animals. Methods, 25: 121-150.
Wessberg, J., Stambaugh, C. R., Kralik, J. D., Beck, P. D., Laubach, M., Chapin, J. K., Kim, J., Biggs, S. J., Srinivasan, M. A., and Nicolelis, M. A. L. (2000). Real-time prediction of hand trajectory by ensembles of cortical neurons in primates. Nature, 408: 361-365.
