Christopher Tyler

I completed my Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) in 2021, where I studied vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in rats to aid in motor rehabilitation after stroke. I subsequently completed my Master's degree in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience, also at UTD. During my Master's, I joined an addiction lab and conducted a study examining the effects of VNS on healthy adults to improve executive function, alongside an additional study investigating the differences between medicinal and recreational daily cannabis users. Following my Master's, I worked as a research associate in the Padilla-Coreano Lab at the University of Florida. While there, I had the rewarding opportunity to pilot a mouse cooperation task and characterize prefrontal dynamics during reward competition using mouse electrophysiological data.

Role of the Pulvinar-Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex Pathway in Adaptive Social Valuation in Marmosets

This project investigates the neural mechanisms behind social valuation. Marmosets are highly social and voluntarily choose to interact, but the decision to attend to social stimuli versus foraging or resting implies a specific value calculation. Using a behavioral two-choice task, I will quantify the value of different social stimuli and use fMRI to identify the pathways necessary for that valuation. This research aims to illuminate neural circuits underlying social anhedonia often seen in autism and depression.

I am curious about complex rewards. While the mechanisms of food and drug rewards are relatively well understood, the neural mechanism of social rewards, like a friendly conversation, are less understood. I suspect there is an innate mechanism making uncertainty reduction rewarding, but since expected and non-novel interactions such as a daily “Good morning” also appear rewarding, I am interested in dissecting the circuitry that assigns value to these abstract social interactions.

• Manuscript Submitted: Filbey, F. M., Short, C. T., Leazure, A., Nekoui, N. E., Brown, T., Liu, C., Kroener, S. (2026). Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Enhances Executive Function and Modulates Fronto-Parietal Delta Connectivity in Healthy Adults.

• Jan 2024 - Jul 2024 Research Associate, Padilla-Coreano Lab, University of Florida, USA
• Nov 2021 - Dec 2023 Research Assistant, NiRD Lab, UT Dallas, Texas, USA
• Jun 2018 Jul 2019 Volunteer Research Assistant, Texas Biomedical Device Center, UT Dallas, Texas, USA
• September 2025 - Birmingham-Leiden Summer School: Computational Social Cognition, Birmingham, UK