Personal identification

Full name

Joseph Paton

Citation names

• Paton, Joseph

Author identifiers

Ciência ID

0C10-BB79-908D

ORCID iD

0000-0002-1663-6455

Websites

• https://patonlab.org/ (Professional)

Knowledge fields

• Natural sciences - Biological Sciences

Languages

Language	Speaking	Reading	Writing	Listening	Peer-review
English	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)
Portuguese	Upper intermediate (B2)	Upper intermediate (B2)	Intermediate (B1)	Upper intermediate (B2)

	Degree	Classification
2008 Concluded	Columbia University Doctoral program in Neurobiology and Behavior (Doctor of Philosophy) Columbia University, United States " Neural activity in the primate amygdala during appetitive and aversive classical conditioning" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	Thesis awarded with distinction
2003 Concluded	Columbia University Doctoral program in Neurobiology and Behavior (Master) Columbia University, United States "N/A" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	N/A
2000 Concluded	Bachelor of Science in Biology (Bachelor) Tufts University, United States "The effect of Pilocarpine on a motor rhythm in larval Manduca Sexta" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	Highest Thesis Honors

Science

	Category Host institution	Employer
2012/01/01 - Current	Principal Investigator (Research)	Programa Champalimaud de Neurociências, Portugal
2008/05/01 - 2012/01/31	Researcher (Research)	Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal

Positions / Appointments

	Category Host institution	Employer
2019/11/30 - Current	Organic Unit Director	Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal
	Programa Champalimaud de Neurociências, Portugal

Others

	Category Host institution	Employer
2008/05/01 - 2012/01/31	Visiting Scientist	Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus, United States
2002/09/02 - 2008/05/14	Doctoral student in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Salzman	Columbia University, United States
2001/09/01 - 2002/09/01	Research Technician, Laboratory of Dr. Daniel Salzman	Columbia University, United States
2000/08/20 - 2001/08/15	Research Technician in the laboratory of Dr. William T. Newsome	Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Stanford University, United States
1998/09/01 - 2000/05/15	Undergraduate researcher within the invertebrate neurobiology laboratory of Dr. Barry Trimmer	Tufts University, United States
1999/05/15 - 1999/09/01	Howard Hughes Medical Institute summer student, Worked in the Development/Genetics laboratory of Dr. Alan Michelson.	Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Harvard Medical School, United States
1997/05/15 - 1997/09/01	Course assistant for summer graduate courses in Parasitology, Medical Mycology, and Computational Neuroscience	Marine Biological Laboratory, United States

Grant

	Designation	Funders
2023/09/01 - 2025/08/31	Differential targeting of molecularly identified striatal neurons as a therapeutic strategy for minimizing non-motor side effects of dopamine replacement MJFF-023180 Principal investigator Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal	Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) Ongoing
2018 - 2023	Toward a circuit level understanding of cognition 55008745 Principal investigator	Howard Hughes Medical Institute Ongoing
2018 - 2023	Basal ganglia circuit mechanisms underlying dynamic cognitive behavior DYCOCIRC_772339 Principal investigator	European Research Council Ongoing
2017 - 2020	How do dopamine neurons and striatal populations interact during decision-making? 193/2016 Principal investigator	Fundação Bial Concluded
2014/03/01 - 2017/02/28	How do the basal ganglia force cortex to do what they want? SCGB 325476 Principal investigator	Simons Foundation Concluded
2013/01/01 - 2015/12/31	Embodied Cognition, the nature of time encoding in the brain? BIAL-BIC-188/12 Principal investigator	Fundação Bial Concluded

Contract

	Designation	Funders
2022/01/17 - 2025/01/16	The neural basis of Weber´s Law PTDC/MED-NEU/4584/2021 Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing
2018/07/17 - 2022/01/16	Whole-brain mechanisms of operant learning in zebrafish: cells, circuits and behaviour. PTDC/MED-NEU/32664/2017 Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded
2019/01/01 - 2019/12/31	Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme UID/NEU/04443/2019 Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded
2017 - 2018	Pharmacological and circuit dissection of direct and indirect pathways during impulsivity research agreement Principal investigator	Roche Pharma Schweiz AG Concluded

Publications

Conference poster	Sousa Margarida; Bujalski, Pawel; Cruz Bruno; Louie Kenway ; McNamee, Daniel; Paton, Joseph. "Dopamine neurons reveal an efficient code for a multidimensional, distributional map of the future.". Paper presented in COSYNE, 2023 (Montreal, Canada), 2023. Freitas, Sofia; Paton, Joseph; Renart, Alfonso. Corresponding author: Freitas, Sofia. "Probing the mechanistic implementation of temporal control using behaviour". Paper presented in 2021 Champalimaud Research Symposium - Dialogues on neural and machine intelligence, 2021.
Journal article	Rodrigues, Filipe S.; Monteiro, Tiago; Motiwala, Asma; Paton, Joseph J.. "The dorsolateral striatum encodes a temporal basis for the organization of behavior". Neuron 112 22 (2024): 3675-3677. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.10.022. 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.10.022 Tiago Monteiro; Filipe S. Rodrigues; Margarida Pexirra; Bruno F. Cruz; Ana I. Gonçalves; Pavel E. Rueda-Orozco; Joseph J. Paton. "Using temperature to analyze the neural basis of a time-based decision". Nature Neuroscience (2023): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01378-5. 10.1038/s41593-023-01378-5 Bruno F. Cruz; Gonçalo Guiomar; Sofia Soares; Asma Motiwala; Christian K. Machens; Joseph J. Paton. "Action suppression reveals opponent parallel control via striatal circuits". Nature (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04894-9. 10.1038/s41586-022-04894-9 Asma Motiwala; Sofia Soares; Bassam V. Atallah; Joseph J. Paton; Christian K. Machens. "Efficient coding of cognitive variables underlies dopamine response and choice behavior". Nature Neuroscience (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-022-01085-7. 10.1038/s41593-022-01085-7 Cruz BF; Paton JJ. "Dopamine gives credit where credit is due.". Neuron (2021): http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/34139181. 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.05.033 Paton, Joseph J.; Buonomano, Dean V.. "The Neural Basis of Timing: Distributed Mechanisms for Diverse Functions". Neuron 98 4 (2018): 687-705. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.03.045. 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.03.045 Lau, Brian; Monteiro, Tiago; Paton, Joseph J. "The many worlds hypothesis of dopamine prediction error: implications of a parallel circuit architecture in the basal ganglia". Current Opinion in Neurobiology 46 (2017): 241-247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2017.08.015. 10.1016/j.conb.2017.08.015 Burgess, Christopher P.; Lak, Armin; Steinmetz, Nicholas A.; Zatka-Haas, Peter; Bai Reddy, Charu; Jacobs, Elina A.K.; Linden, Jennifer F.; et al. "High-Yield Methods for Accurate Two-Alternative Visual Psychophysics in Head-Fixed Mice". Cell Reports 20 10 (2017): 2513-2524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2017.08.047. 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.08.047 Saez, Rebecca A.; Saez, Alexandre; Paton, Joseph J.; Lau, Brian; Salzman, C. Daniel. "Distinct Roles for the Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex in Representing the Relative Amount of Expected Reward". Neuron 95 1 (2017): 70-77.e3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.06.012. 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.06.012 Soares S; Atallah BV; Paton JJ. "Midbrain dopamine neurons control judgment of time.". (2016): http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/27940870. Gouvêa, Thiago S; Monteiro, Tiago; Motiwala, Asma; Soares, Sofia; Machens, Christian; Paton, Joseph J. "Striatal dynamics explain duration judgments". eLife 4 (2015): http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/elife.11386. 10.7554/elife.11386 Mello GB; Soares S; Paton JJ. "A scalable population code for time in the striatum.". (2015): http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/25913405. 10.1016/j.cub.2015.02.036 Paton JJ; Lau B. "Tread softly and carry a clock's tick.". (2015): http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/25710833. 10.1038/nn.3959 Lopes G; Bonacchi N; Frazão J; Neto JP; Atallah BV; Soares S; Moreira L; et al. "Bonsai: an event-based framework for processing and controlling data streams.". (2015): http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/25904861. 10.3389/fninf.2015.00007 Gomez-Marin, A.; Paton, J.J.; Kampff, A.R.; Costa, R.M.; Mainen, Z.F.. "Big behavioral data: Psychology, ethology and the foundations of neuroscience". Nature Neuroscience 17 11 (2014): 1455-1462. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84908500040&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1038/nn.3812 Gouvêa, T.S.; Monteiro, T.; Soares, S.; Atallah, B.V.; Paton, J.J.. "Ongoing behavior predicts perceptual report of interval duration". Frontiers in Neurorobotics 8 MAR (2014): http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84904858499&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.3389/fnbot.2014.00010 Zhang, W.; Schneider, D.M.; Belova, M.A.; Morrison, S.E.; Paton, J.J.; Salzman, C.D.. "Functional circuits and anatomical distribution of response properties in the primate amygdala". Journal of Neuroscience 33 2 (2013): 722-733. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84872062763&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2970-12.2013 Paton, J.J.; Louie, K.. "Reward and punishment illuminated". Nature Neuroscience 15 6 (2012): 807-809. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84861537988&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1038/nn.3122 Belova, M.A.; Paton, J.J.; Salzman, C.D.. "Moment-to-moment tracking of state value in the amygdala". Journal of Neuroscience 28 40 (2008): 10023-10030. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-54049104420&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1400-08.2008 Belova, M.A.; Paton, J.J.; Morrison, S.E.; Salzman, C.D.. "Expectation Modulates Neural Responses to Pleasant and Aversive Stimuli in Primate Amygdala". Neuron 55 6 (2007): 970-984. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-34548571904&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.08.004 Salzman, C.D.; Paton, J.J.; Belova, M.A.; Morrison, S.E.. "Flexible neural representations of value in the primate brain". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1121 (2007): 336-354. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-37549052420&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1196/annals.1401.034 Paton, J.J.; Belova, M.A.; Morrison, S.E.; Salzman, C.D.. "The primate amygdala represents the positive and negative value of visual stimuli during learning". Nature 439 7078 (2006): 865-870. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-32844469435&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1038/nature04490 Salzman, C.D.; Belova, M.A.; Paton, J.J.. "Beetles, boxes and brain cells: Neural mechanisms underlying valuation and learning". Current Opinion in Neurobiology 15 6 (2005): 721-729. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-27944492732&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1016/j.conb.2005.10.016
Preprint	Haimerl, Caroline; Filipe S. Rodrigues; Paton, Joseph. Corresponding author: Paton, Joseph. "Time, control, and the nervous system". 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22917. Sousa, Margarida; Bujalski, Pawel; Cruz, Bruno F.; Louie, Kenway; McNamee, Daniel; Paton, Joseph J.. "Dopamine neurons encode a multidimensional probabilistic map of future reward". 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.12.566727. 10.1101/2023.11.12.566727 Filipe S. Rodrigues; Tiago Monteiro; Asma Motiwala; Joseph J. Paton. "The dorsolateral striatum encodes a temporal basis for the organization of behavior". 2023. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.13.566826. 10.1101/2023.11.13.566826 Thiago S. Gouvêa; Tiago Monteiro; Asma Motiwala; Sofia Soares; Christian K. Machens; Joseph J. Paton. "Striatal dynamics explain duration judgments". 2015. https://doi.org/10.1101/020883. 10.1101/020883
Thesis / Dissertation	Cruz, Bruno. "Striatal circuits supporting action production and suppression". PhD, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/138597. Soares, Sofia Lima da Silva. "Time in the basal ganglia". PhD, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/78875. Gouvêa, Thiago Santos. "Striatal dynamics represent subjective time". PhD, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/51884. Peixoto, Diogo Manuel Barros Magalhães da Rocha. "Single-trial correlates of decision-making in dorsal premotor and primary motor cortices". PhD, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/55748. Mello, Gustavo Borges Moreno e. "Neural and Behavioral Mechanisms of Interval Timing in the Striatum". PhD, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/43665. Lopes, Gonçalo Cardoso. "A Robust Role for Motor Cortex". PhD, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/57508. Fernandes, José Joaquim Fonseca Ribas. "Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning in Behavior and the Brain". PhD, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/11971. Soares, Sofia Lima da Silva, 1987-. "Optogenetic investigation of striatal cell type during timing behavior". Master, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10451/2392.

Other

Other output

Using temperature to analyse the neural basis of a latent temporal decision. In revision. 2020. Tiago Monteiro; Filipe S. Rodrigues; Margarida Pexirra; Bruno F. Cruz; Ana I. Gonçalves; Pavel E. Rueda-Orozco; Joseph J. Paton. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.24.251827. 10.1101/2020.08.24.251827 Striatal circuits support broadly opponent aspects of action suppression and production. Now titled "Action suppression reveals opponent parallel control via striatal circuits" and in principle accepted for publication in Nature, 2022. Authors: Bruno F. Cruz, Gonçalo Guiomar, Asma Motiwala, Sofia Soares, Chrisitian K. Machens, Joseph J. Paton. 2020. Paton, Joseph. https://doi.org/10.1101%2F2020.06.30.180539. 10.1101/2020.06.30.180539 Dopamine responses reveal efficient coding of cognitive variables. now titled "Efficient coding of cognitive variables underlies dopamine responses and choice behavior" and in principle accepted for publication in Nature Neuroscience, 2022.. 2020. Paton, Joseph. https://doi.org/10.1101%2F2020.05.20.100065. 10.1101/2020.05.20.100065 A robust role for motor cortex. 2016. Gonçalo Lopes; Joana Nogueira; George Dimitriadis; Jorge Aurelio Menendez; Joseph J. Paton; Adam R. Kampff. https://doi.org/10.1101/058917. 10.1101/058917 High-yield methods for accurate two-alternative visual psychophysics in head-fixed mice. 2016. Christopher P Burgess; Armin Lak; Nicholas A Steinmetz; Peter Zatka-Haas; Charu Bai Reddy; Elina A K Jacobs; Jennifer F Linden; et al. https://doi.org/10.1101/051912. 10.1101/051912

Other distinction

2017	Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
2008	PhD awarded with distinction Columbia University, United States
2000	Senior undergraduate thesis, highest honors Tufts University, United States
1999	HHMI summer student Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States