Lesley Fellows, MD, D. Phil.

Dr. Lesley Fellows is a neurologist specializing in disorders of cognition. She has a particular interest in the functions of the brain's frontal lobes. Her research program focuses on the brain basis of decision making in humans, using the tools of cognitive neuroscience. She studies how focal brain damage or neurochemical dysfunction affects all aspects of decision making, how options are generated and organized, how they are valued and compared, and how choices are made. She is also interested in more general questions about the roles of the frontal lobes in the regulation of emotion, the expression of personality traits, and the representation of past and future information. This work has relevance for understanding impaired executive function following frontal lobe injury from aneurysm rupture, stroke, or tumor growth, as well as in degenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease and some forms of dementia. It also provides insights into how the component processes that underlie decision making are carried out in the intact brain.