David Bett

Centre of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CCNS), University of Edinburgh.

I graduated in 2007 with a BA (Hons) in Psychology (first class) from the University of Stirling. My undergraduate final year project investigated primacy effects in memory for human motor movements. This project was supervised by Dr. David Lieberman and received the Alan Baddeley prize for best final year project.

My present PhD research is in the field of cognitive neuroscience and my principal supervisor is Dr. Paul Dudchenko.

My primary interest is in determining the neural underpinnings of navigation in mammals; currently, the role of head-direction cells to guide spatial behaviour. Head-direction cells are neurons that code an animal's direction within its environment.

It has been suggested that rodents use path integration (dead reckoning) to navigate, and also that the head-direction cell system is linked to this ability. Path integration is essentially the ability to navigate directly back to a starting point (home) from any point during a journey, using internally generated cues (e.g. vestibular cues) to keep track of distance and direction travelled. My research will initially investigate whether or not rats actually do use path integration to home, and then record from single head-direction cells to determine if the firing of these cells is predictive of rats' spatial behaviour.

My research is carried out at the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems at the University of Edinburgh.

First year tutor - PSY912 Introductory Psychology 2

Second Year lab demonstrator - PSY9A4 Brain & Behaviour, Clinical Perspectives

Third Year tutor - PSY9AN Learning and the Brain

Bett, D., Stevenson, C. H., Smith, M.T., Shires, K.L., Huang, S.Y.C., Wood, E.R. & Dudchenko, P.A. The postsubiculum and spatial memory: effects of AMPA and NMDA receptor antagonists in the postsubiculum on spatial memory and on hippocampal place field stability. Poster presentation at the 7th FENS forum of European Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Jul. 2010 (Upcoming).

Bett, D., Smith, M., Shires, K.L, Huang, YC., Wood, E.R & Dudchenko, P.A. Place fields and memory: the effects of delay and postsubicular inactivation on hippocampal place field stabililty in newly learned environments. Poster presentation at Society for Neureoscience Annual conference, Chicago, Oct. 2009.

Bett, D., Smith, M., Huang, YC., Shires, K.L , Dudchenko, P.A & Wood, E.R. Memory and the hippocampus: delay-dependent stability of place fields in new environments. Poster presentation at Edinburgh Neuroscience Day, Edinburgh, Mar. 2009.

Bett, D. & Dudchenko, P.A. The brain basis of spatial cognition: is the postsubiculum, an input to the hippocampus, necessary for navigation without landmarks? Poster presentation at 5th Annual Scottish Neuroscience Meeting, Glasgow, Aug. 2008.