John Michael Pearson | Scholars@Duke

John Michael Pearson
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics

My research focuses on the application of machine learning methods to the analysis of brain data and behavior. I have a special interest in the neurobiology of reward and decision-making, particularly issues surrounding foraging, impulsivity, and self-control. More generally, I am interested in computational principles underlying brain organization at the mesoscale, and work in my lab studies phenomena that range from complex social behaviors to coding principles of the retina.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Basic Science Departments 2018
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Psychology and Neuroscience, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016
Assistant Research Professor in Neurobiology, Neurobiology, Basic Science Departments 2018
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering 2018
Member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences 2016

Contact Information

Duke Box 90999, Durham, NC 27708
Levine Science Research Center, B255, Durham, NC 27710
john.pearson@duke.edu (919) 613-8338
John's blog.
Lab Website

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Princeton University 2004
- B.S., University of Kentucky at Lexington 1999
Duke Appointment History
- Assistant Research Professor in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers 2015 - 2018
- Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers 2015
Recognition
In the News
- OCT 29, 2015
  
  John Pearson: Data Explorer Inside the Brain
Expertise
Subject Headings
Research
Selected Grants
- Quantitative Methods for HIV/AIDS Research awarded by National Institutes of Health 2018 - 2023
- A Systems Biology Approach to HIV-associated Neurocognitive Impairment: Role of Drug Abuse and Neuroinflammation awarded by National Institutes of Health 2016 - 2021
- Computational Modeling of Decision Making by Prosecutors and Jurors in Criminal Justice awarded by National Science Foundation 2017 - 2019
- Nonparametric Bayes Methods for Big Data in Neuroscience awarded by National Institutes of Health 2014 - 2019
- Neural Circuit Mechanisms Mediating TMS and Oxytocin Effects on Social Cognition awarded by University of Pennsylvania 2016 - 2019
- Mechanisms of Parkinsonian Impulsivity in Human Subthalamic Nucleus awarded by National Institutes of Health 2014 - 2017
- Animal Model of Genetics and Social Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorders awarded by National Institutes of Health 2012 - 2016
- Contributions of Areas LIP and VIP to Numerical Behavior awarded by National Institutes of Health 2009 - 2013
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Academic Articles
  - Pearson, JM, Law, JR, Skene, JAG, Beskind, DH, Vidmar, N, Ball, DA, Malekpour, A, Carter, RM, and Skene, JHP. "Modelling the effects of crime type and evidence on judgments about guilt." Nature Human Behaviour 2, no. 11 (November 2018): 856-866. Open Access Copy
  - Lighthall, NR, Pearson, JM, Huettel, SA, and Cabeza, R. "Feedback-Based Learning in Aging: Contributions and Trajectories of Change in Striatal and Hippocampal Systems." The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience 38, no. 39 (September 2018): 8453-8462. Full Text
  - Addicott, MA, Pearson, JM, Sweitzer, MM, Barack, DL, and Platt, ML. "A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research." Neuropsychopharmacology : Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 42, no. 10 (September 2017): 1931-1939. (Review) Full Text
  - Chen, X, Beck, JM, and Pearson, JM. "Neuron's eye view: Inferring features of complex stimuli from neural responses." Plos Computational Biology 13, no. 8 (August 21, 2017): e1005645-null. Full Text
  - Dowd, EW, Pearson, JM, and Egner, T. "Decoding working memory content from attentional biases." Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24, no. 4 (August 2017): 1252-1260. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, Hickey, PT, Lad, SP, Platt, ML, and Turner, DA. "Local Fields in Human Subthalamic Nucleus Track the Lead-up to Impulsive Choices." Frontiers in Neuroscience 11 (January 2017): 646-null. Full Text
  - San Martín, R, Kwak, Y, Pearson, JM, Woldorff, MG, and Huettel, SA. "Altruistic traits are predicted by neural responses to monetary outcomes for self vs charity." Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 11, no. 6 (June 2016): 863-876. Full Text
  - Platt, ML, and Pearson, JM. "Dopamine: Context and counterfactuals." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, no. 1 (January 2016): 22-23. Full Text
  - Chang, SWC, Fagan, NA, Toda, K, Utevsky, AV, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Neural mechanisms of social decision-making in the primate amygdala." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112, no. 52 (December 14, 2015): 16012-16017. Full Text
  - Addicott, MA, Pearson, JM, Kaiser, N, Platt, ML, and McClernon, FJ. "Suboptimal foraging behavior: a new perspective on gambling." Behavioral neuroscience 129, no. 5 (October 2015): 656-665. Full Text
  - Dowd, EW, Pearson, JM, and Egner, T. "Mind-reading without the scanner: Behavioural decoding of working memory content." Visual Cognition 23, no. 7 (January 1, 2015): 862-866. Full Text
  - Addicott, MA, Pearson, JM, Froeliger, B, Platt, ML, and McClernon, FJ. "Smoking automaticity and tolerance moderate brain activation during explore-exploit behavior." Psychiatry Research 224, no. 3 (December 2014): 254-261. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, Watson, KK, and Platt, ML. "Decision making: the neuroethological turn." Neuron 82, no. 5 (June 2014): 950-965. (Review) Full Text
  - Jones, SM, Pearson, J, DeWind, NK, Paulsen, D, Tenekedjieva, A-M, and Brannon, EM. "Lemurs and macaques show similar numerical sensitivity." Animal Cognition 17, no. 3 (May 2014): 503-515. Full Text
  - Ebitz, RB, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Pupil size and social vigilance in rhesus macaques." Frontiers in neuroscience 8 (January 2014): 100-. Full Text
  - Kwak, Y, Pearson, J, and Huettel, SA. "Differential reward learning for self and others predicts self-reported altruism." Plos One 9, no. 9 (January 2014): e107621-null. Full Text
  - Yorzinski, JL, Patricelli, GL, Babcock, JS, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Erratum: Through their eyes: Selective attention in peahens during courtship (Journal of Experimental Biology 216 (3035-3046))." Journal of Experimental Biology 216, no. 22 (November 1, 2013): 4310-null. Full Text
  - Blanchard, TC, Pearson, JM, and Hayden, BY. "Postreward delays and systematic biases in measures of animal temporal discounting." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, no. 38 (September 3, 2013): 15491-15496. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Dopamine: burning the candle at both ends." Neuron 79, no. 5 (September 2013): 831-833. Full Text
  - Yorzinski, JL, Patricelli, GL, Babcock, JS, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Through their eyes: selective attention in peahens during courtship." The Journal of Experimental Biology 216, no. Pt 16 (August 2013): 3035-3046. Full Text
  - Chang, SWC, Brent, LJN, Adams, GK, Klein, JT, Pearson, JM, Watson, KK, and Platt, ML. "Neuroethology of primate social behavior." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 Suppl 2 (June 10, 2013): 10387-10394. Full Text
  - San Martín, R, Appelbaum, LG, Pearson, JM, Huettel, SA, and Woldorff, MG. "Rapid brain responses independently predict gain maximization and loss minimization during economic decision making." The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience 33, no. 16 (April 2013): 7011-7019. Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Addicott, MA, Pearson, JM, Wilson, J, Platt, ML, and McClernon, FJ. "Smoking and the bandit: a preliminary study of smoker and nonsmoker differences in exploratory behavior measured with a multiarmed bandit task." Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 21, no. 1 (February 2013): 66-73. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, Watson, KK, Klein, JT, Ebitz, RB, and Platt, ML. "Individual differences in social information gathering revealed through Bayesian hierarchical models." Frontiers in neuroscience 7 (January 2013): 165-. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Change detection, multiple controllers, and dynamic environments: insights from the brain." Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior 99, no. 1 (January 2013): 74-84. Full Text
  - Adams, GK, Watson, KK, Pearson, J, and Platt, ML. "Neuroethology of decision-making." Current opinion in neurobiology 22, no. 6 (December 2012): 982-989. (Review) Full Text
  - Pearson, J, and Platt, ML. "Dynamic decision making in the brain." Nature Neuroscience 15, no. 3 (March 2012): 341-342. Full Text
  - Hayden, BY, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Neuronal basis of sequential foraging decisions in a patchy environment." Nature Neuroscience 14, no. 7 (June 5, 2011): 933-939. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, Heilbronner, SR, Barack, DL, Hayden, BY, and Platt, ML. "Posterior cingulate cortex: adapting behavior to a changing world." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 4 (April 2011): 143-151. Full Text
  - Hayden, BY, Heilbronner, SR, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Surprise signals in anterior cingulate cortex: neuronal encoding of unsigned reward prediction errors driving adjustment in behavior." The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience 31, no. 11 (March 2011): 4178-4187. Full Text
  - Pearson, J, Roitman, JD, Brannon, EM, Platt, ML, and Raghavachari, S. "A physiologically-inspired model of numerical classification based on graded stimulus coding." FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 4 (2010). Full Text Link to Item
  - Pearson, JM, Hayden, BY, and Platt, ML. "Explicit information reduces discounting behavior in monkeys." Frontiers in Psychology 1 (January 2010): 237-null. Full Text
  - Pearson, JM, Hayden, BY, Raghavachari, S, and Platt, ML. "Neurons in posterior cingulate cortex signal exploratory decisions in a dynamic multioption choice task." Current Biology : Cb 19, no. 18 (September 3, 2009): 1532-1537. Full Text
  - Pearson, J, and Platt, ML. "Confidence and corrections: how we make and un-make up our minds." Neuron 63, no. 6 (September 2009): 724-726. Full Text
  - Hayden, BY, Pearson, JM, and Platt, ML. "Fictive reward signals in the anterior cingulate cortex." Science (New York, N.Y.) 324, no. 5929 (May 2009): 948-950. Full Text
  - Watson, KK, and Platt, ML. "Neuroethology of reward and decision making." Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 363, no. 1511 (December 2008): 3825-3835. Full Text
  - Pearson, J, Spradlin, M, Vaman, D, Verlinde, H, and Volovich, A. "Tracing the string: BMN correspondence at finite J²/N." Journal of High Energy Physics 7, no. 5 (May 1, 2003): 477-487.
  - Kachru, S, Pearson, J, and Verlinde, H. "Brane/flux annihilation and the string dual of a non-supersymmetric field theory." Journal of High Energy Physics 6, no. 6 (June 1, 2002): 387-411.
  - Braaten, E, and Pearson, J. "Semiclassical corrections to the oscillation frequencies of a trapped bose-einstein condensate." Physical Review Letters 82, no. 2 (January 1, 1999): 255-258. Full Text
- Book Sections
  - Chang, SWC, Brent, LJN, Adams, GK, Klein, JT, Pearson, JM, Watson, KK, and Platt, ML. "Neuroethology of primate social behavior." In In the Light of Evolution, 115-134. June 19, 2014. Full Text
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Advising & Mentoring
- We are looking for students with strong quantitative skills (statistics, computer science, engineering) who want to apply what they know to challenging problems in neuroscience. Come help us design the next generation of brain analysis tools!
Available to mentor:
- Undergraduate

Some information on this profile has been compiled automatically from Duke databases and external sources. (Our About page explains how this works.) If you see a problem with the information, please write to Scholars@Duke and let us know. We will reply promptly.

Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

In the News

Subject Headings

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Recent Courses

Advising & Mentoring

Available to mentor: