Project Title: The neural basis of abrupt transitions from goal-directed to habitual behavior.

A fundamental tenet of animal behavior is that decision-making involves multiple 'controllers.' Initially, behavior is goal-directed, driven by desired outcomes, shifting later to habitual control, where cues trigger actions independent of underlying motivation. This transition from goal-directed to habitual control has long been assumed to be slow and gradual. As an early postdoctoral fellow, I developed a novel behavioral paradigm (‘volitional engagement’) which demonstrates that by training ‘undermotivated’ animals, we uncover spontaneous transitions from goal-directed to habitual behavior within individual animals’ action rates, and that these transitions occur strikingly fast (~5 trials), challenging the existing models of habit formation (under revision, Nature Neuroscience). In this proposal, I aim to identify the neural basis of this rapid transition to habits.