• Profile

     Ayaka Kato is a postdoctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, under the mentorship of Dr. Ignacio Saez and Dr. Xiaosi Gu. She attained her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in March 2023 and holds a Master of Science in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor and a Master of Biological Science from the University of Tokyo. Ayaka's research focus encompasses computational psychiatry, dopamine, motivation, and addiction. She employs computational modeling, intracranial recording, and neuroimaging techniques to investigate these areas of study.

  • CV

    latest update 2022.04.15

  • Publication

    Google sholar: https://scholar.google.co.jp/citations?user=27OzVqAAAAAJ&hl=ja

     

    (updated 23.12.01)

     

    Ayaka Kato, Kazumi Ohta, Kazuo Okanoya, Hokto Kazama (2023) Dopaminergic neurons dynamically update sensory values during olfactory maneuver. Cell Report

     

    Ayaka Kato, Kanji Shimomura, Dimitri Ognibene, Muhammad A Parvaz, Laura A Berner, Kenji Morita, Vincenzo G Fiore (2022) Computational models of behavioral addictions: state of the art and future directions. Addictive Behavior

     

    Morita, K., & Kato, A. (2022). Dopamine ramps for accurate value learning under uncertainty. Trends in Neurosciences.

     

    Shimomura, K., Kato, A., & Morita, K. (2021). Rigid reduced successor representation as a potential mechanism for addiction. The European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(11), 3768.

     

    Kario, K., Nomura, A., Kato, A., Harada, N., Tanigawa, T., So, R., ... & Satake, K. (2021). Digital therapeutics for essential hypertension using a smartphone application: A randomized, open‐label, multicenter pilot study. The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, 23(5), 923-934.

     

    Kato, A., Kunisato, Y., Katahira, K., Okimura, T., & Yamashita, Y. (2020). Computational Psychiatry Research Map (CPSYMAP): a new database for visualizing research papers. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 1360.

     

    Kato, A., & Morita, K. (2020). Dynamical Systems Approach: An Elementary Introduction and Application to Research on Dopamine and Reinforcement Learning. Brain and Nerve= Shinkei Kenkyu no Shinpo, 72(11), 1275-1282.

     

    Kato A, Tanigawa T, Satake K, Nomura A (2020) Efficacy of the Ascure Smoking Cessation Program: Retrospective Study JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2020;8(5):e17270

     

    Morita K & Kato A (2018) A Neural Circuit Mechanism for the Involvements of Dopamine in Effort-Related Choices: Decay of Learned Values, Secondary Effects of Depletion, and Calculation of Temporal Difference Error. eNeuro, ENEURO-0021.

     

    Kato A & Morita K (2016) Forgetting in Reinforcement Learning Links Sustained Dopamine Signals to Motivation. PLoS Comput Biol 12(10): e1005145. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005145

    Code: https://senselab.med.yale.edu/ModelDB/ShowModel.cshtml?model=195890#tabs-1

    Morita K and Kato A (2014) Striatal dopamine ramping may indicate flexible reinforcement learning with forgetting in the cortico-basal ganglia circuits. Front. Neural Circuits 8:36. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2014.0003

     

    Click the figures to access the papers

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    Rigid reduced successor representation as a potential mechanism for addiction

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    Computational Psychiatry Research Map (CPSYMAP): A New Database for Visualizing Research Papers

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    Efficacy of the Ascure Smoking Cessation Program: Retrospective Study

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    A Neural Circuit Mechanism for the Involvements of Dopamine in Effort-Related Choices

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    Forgetting in Reinforcement Learning Links Sustained Dopamine Signals to Motivation.

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    Striatal dopamine ramping may indicate flexible reinforcement learning with forgetting in the cortico-basal ganglia circuits. 

  • Education

    2017.4 - current

    • Ph.D. student, Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,

      The University of Tokyo

      Laboratory for Circuit Mechanisms of Sensory Perception @ RIKEN CBS

      Supervised by Dr. Hokto Kazama / Skills: Ca2+ imaging

    2017.9 - 2018.9

    • MSc in Neuroscience, Graduate Programme in Neuroscience,

      University of Oxford

      1st dissertation: Human TMS & MEG project - advisor: Dr. Matthew Rushworth

      2nd dissertation: Rodent dopamine juxtacellular recording project-advisor: Dr. Peter Magill

    2015.4 - 2017.3

    • MSc, Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science,

      The University of Tokyo advisor: Dr. Yasuo Ihara / Skills: MATLAB Programing, Multi-agent simulation, Genetic Algorism

    2011.4 - 2015.3

    • BSc, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science,

      The University of Tokyo advisor: Dr. Takeo Kubo and Dr. Hideaki Takeuchi / Skills: Wavelet analysis, CRISPR-Cas9

  • Awards and Grants

    • Frist prize in the first whole brain architecture Hackathon in Tokyo (2015) “Curiosity based exploration using place cell”
    • Scholarship from Son-Masayoshi Foundation (2017-2021)
    • JSPS research fellow (DC2 2019.4-2021.3)
    • Director Poster Award, Gold prize, at the RIKEN CBS Retreat

  • Presentations and invited talks

    Kato A & Kazama H Encoding of innate values of odors by dopaminergic neurons. The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society 07/2020

     

    Ayaka Kato, Tomoyuki Tanigawa, Kohta Satake, Akihiro Nomura EFFICACY OF THE NOVEL DIGITAL ASCURE SMOKING CESSATION PROGRAM COMBINING SMARTPHONE APP AND WEB BASED MENTORING Poster-> https://cureapp.institute/resource/img/pdf/SNRT_abstract.pdf
    Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco (SRNT) 25th Annual Meeting San Francisco, California USA, February 2019

     

    Kato A & Morita K Forgetting in reinforcement learning reconciles the two roles of dopamine: reward prediction error and motivational drive (633.06.)

    Society for neuroscience San Diego USA 11/2016

     

    Itoh T*, Ukita J*, Kato A* *Equal contribution Modeling the development of place cells in hippocampus.

    Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures Lyon France 11/2015

     

    Kato A & Morita K Potential mechanistic account for the suggested relationship between the ramping dopamine signal and sustained motivational drive: a study of reinforcement learning model.

    doi: 10.12751/nncn.bc2015.0095 Bernstein Conference Heidelberg Germany 09/2015

     

    Kato A & Morita K

    Exploring models of reinforcement learning to explain the ramping DA signal in the striatum.

    The 37th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, Yokohama Japan 09/2014

  • Experiences

    2018.10 - 2021.3

    Researcher -- CureApp Inc

    Project: Evaluating the efficacy of the Ascure Smoking Cessation Program

    Skills: R, Logistic regression, Academic writing

     

    2018.12 - 2019.3

    Research assistant - UTEC (Venture Capital)

     

    2018.2 - 2018.6

    Internship in R&D  sector -- Araya (Japanese startup) 

    Project: Exploratory research on how to utilize Phi-tool box https://figshare.com/articles/phi_toolbox_zip/3203326

    Skills: MATLAB, Analyzing Network

     

    2015.11  – 2016.3

    Internship in R&D  sector -- Colorful Board (Japanese startup) 

    Project: Visualizing user’s fashion preference for personalized recommendation system

    Skills: Python, Natural language processing (Word2Vec)

     

    2015.8 – 2016.2

    Hackathon winner -- Whole Brain Architecture Hackathon in Tokyo

    Project: Developing an agent exploring novel virtual space by self-localization and mapping

    Skills: Python, recurrent neural network (LSTM)

     

    2013.8  –  2018.2 

    Research Assistant -- University of Tokyo  (Supervisor: Dr. Kenji Morita)

    Project: Computational modeling of motivation as reinforcement learning with forgetting

    Skills: MATLAB Programing, Reinforcement learning, Nonlinear dynamics

  • Projects

    Click the icons to see the link related to the current projects I'm working on!

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    PhD project in experimental neuroscience

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    Research in digital therapeutics

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    System design of the new database

  • Contact

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    Email

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    Twitter

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