Professor Matthew Apps PhD

School of Psychology
Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

Contact details

Email: m.a.j.apps@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @brain_apps

Professor Apps is a leading expert in the computational, cognitive and neural basis of motivation and social behaviour. More information about his lab can be found here: www.MSN-lab.com

Qualifications

BSc.(Hons.) Psychology,

MSc. Psychological Research Methods,

PhD. in Cognitive Neuroscience

Biography

Professor Apps is an award winning cognitive computational neuroscientist. He obtained a First-class BSc. in Psychology from Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), before receiving a ESRC 1+3 scholarship to complete an MSc (with Distinction) at Reading University and a PhD at RHUL, under the supervision of Professor Narender Ramnani.

He undertook postdoctoral positions first under the supervision of Professor Manos Tsakiris at RHUL and then moving to the University of Oxford with Professor Masud Husain. In 2015 Professor Apps was awarded a BBSRC Future Leader Fellowship at the University of Oxford. He subsequently started the MSN lab on a 5-year ~£1.2m BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in 2018 as well as becoming a Senior Associate Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford. He joined the Centre for Human Brain Health, Institute of Mental Health and School of Psychology at University of Birmingham as a Senior Research Fellow (≈Associate Professor) in summer 2020. In 2024 he was appointed Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience.

He has received multiple awards for his research including the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN) Young Scientist Award (2016), the Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award (2018), a University of Oxford Recognition of Excellence (2019) and the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience early career award (2021)

Teaching

Professor Apps currently contributes to teaching on the Masters courses in the CHBH and School of Psychology, as well as on 3^rd year undergraduate courses.

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Apps is keen to hear from potential PhD students interested in understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying motivation, effort, apathy, fatigue, cognitive control, decision-making or other areas of cognitive computational neuroscience. Please send him a brief email with CV and reason for interest in the MSN lab to arrange a meeting to discuss funding opportunities.

Research

Professor Apps’ research examines what makes people motivated, why some people in the typical population are more or less motivated than others, and why motivation can become significantly impaired in neurological (e.g. Parkinson’s Disease) and psychiatric conditions. His work uses an array of tools including computational modelling, brain imaging (fMRI/MEG), brain stimulation, and psychopharmacological approaches to understand the brain mechanisms underlying how people decide whether to engage in behaviours or not and applies these approaches to understand symptoms such as fatigue and apathy.

The lab currently has approximately £3m funding from a European Research Council Consolidator grant, a Wellcome Trust Discovery Award, a Jacobs Foundation Fellowship, and grants from the BBSRC.

Other activities

Awards

o University of Oxford Recognition of Excellence (2019)

o Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award (2018)

o Christ Church college Senior Associate Research Fellowship (2018-2023)

o University Research Lecturer honorary title (2017)

o European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN) Young Scientist Award (2016)

o Society for Neuroscience Professional Development Award (2016)

o Fulford Junior Research Fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford (2014-2016)

o OHBM Trainee Award (2009 & 2015)

Responsibilities

o Editorial Board member at Nature Publishing Group, Scientific Reports (2017 - present)

o Board member for the Society for Social Neuroscience (2019 – present)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Talbot, J, Cutler, J, Tamm, M, Little, SJ, Harmer, CJ, Husain, M, Lockwood, PL & Apps, MAJ 2025, 'Dopamine boosts motivation for prosocial effort in Parkinson's disease', The Journal of Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1593-24.2024

Contreras-Huerta, LS, Yu, H, Prosser, AMB, Lockwood, PL, Crockett, MJ & Apps, MAJ 2025, 'Hypocritical blame is associated with reduced prosocial motivation', Scientific Reports, vol. 15, no. 1, 32811. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-17698-4

Cutler, J, Contreras-Huerta, LS, Todorova, B, Nitschke, JP, Michalaki, K, Koppel, L, Gkinopoulos, T, Vogel, T, Lamm, C, Vastfjall, D, Tsakiris, M, Apps, M & Lockwood, P 2025, 'Psychological interventions that decrease psychological distance or challenge system justification increase motivation to exert effort to mitigate climate change', Communications Psychology, vol. 3, 148. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00332-4

Gueguen, M, Cutler, J, Drew, D, Apps, MAJ, Jeyaretna, DS, Husain, M, Manohar, SG & Lockwood, PL 2025, 'Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions disrupt learning to reward others', Brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awaf056

Contreras-Huerta, LS, Pisauro, MA, Küchenhoff, S, Gekiere, A, Le Heron, C, Lockwood, PL & Apps, MAJ 2024, 'A reward self-bias leads to more optimal foraging for ourselves than others', Scientific Reports, vol. 14, no. 1, 26845. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-69452-x

Morris, L-A, Horne, K-L, Manohar, S, Paermentier, L, Buchanan, CM, MacAskill, MR, Myall, DJ, Apps, M, Roxburgh, R, Anderson, TJ, Husain, M & Le Heron, C 2024, 'Decision cost hypersensitivity underlies Huntington’s disease apathy', Brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae296

Lockwood, PL, Cutler, J, Drew, D, Abdurahman, A, Jeyaretna, DS, Apps, MAJ, Husain, M & Manohar, SG 2024, 'Human ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for prosocial motivation', Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 8, no. 7, pp. 1403-1416. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01899-4

Su, Z, Garvert, MM, Zhang, L, Manohar, SG, Vogel, TA, Thomas, L, Balsters, JH, Husain, M, Apps, MAJ & Lockwood, PL 2024, 'Older adults are relatively more susceptible to impulsive social influence than young adults', Communications Psychology, vol. 2, no. 1, 87. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00134-0

Gaule, A, Martin, P, Lockwood, PL, Cutler, J, Apps, M, Roberts, R, Phillips, H, Brown, K, McCrory, EJ & Viding, E 2024, 'Reduced prosocial motivation and effort in adolescents with conduct problems and callous‐unemotional traits', Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13945

Gabay, AS, Pisauro, A, O’Nell, KC & Apps, MAJ 2024, 'Social environment-based opportunity costs dictate when people leave social interactions', Communications Psychology, vol. 2, no. 1, 42. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00094-5

The International Climate Psychology Collaboration, Contreras-Huerta, LS & Elsherif, M 2024, 'The International Climate Psychology Collaboration: Climate change-related data collected from 63 countries', Scientific Data, vol. 11, 1066. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03865-1

Matthews, J, Pisauro, A, Jurgelis, M, Müller, T, Vassena, E, Chong, TT-J & Apps, M 2023, 'Computational mechanisms underlying the dynamics of physical and cognitive fatigue', Cognition, vol. 240, 105603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105603

Contreras-Huerta, LS, Coll, M-P, Bird, G, Yu, H, Prosser, A, Lockwood, PL, Murphy, J, Crockett, MJ & Apps, MAJ 2023, 'Neural representations of vicarious rewards are linked to interoception and prosocial behaviour', NeuroImage, vol. 269, 119881. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119881

International Collaboration on the Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 2023, 'Social and moral psychology of COVID-19 across 69 countries', Scientific Data, vol. 10, no. 1, 272. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02080-8

Preprint

Su, Z, Garvert, MM, Zhang, L, Manohar, S, Vogel, TA, Thomas, L, Balsters, JH, Husain, M, Apps, MAJ & Lockwood, PL 2024 'Older adults are more susceptible to impulsive social influence' PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zdr7q

View all publications in research portal