Tsen Vei Lim

Dr Tsen Vei Lim

BSc PhD

  • Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
  • School Clinical Medicine Department of Psychiatry (inc Brain Mapping Unit and Developmental Psychopathology
  • Email tvl22@cam.ac.uk
  • X Profile @TVLim94
  • Department link Dept of Psychiatry

Tsen Vei is a 'Society for the Study of Addiction' Academic Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry. As a cognitive neuroscientist, he is interested in understanding the neurocognitive dysfunctions associated with substance use disorders.

Tsen Vei Lim

Tsen Vei earned his BSc in Psychology from the University of Bath in 2017. Motivated by his interest in neuroscience and mental health, he obtained a PhD in Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Karen Ersche. His doctoral research used computational modelling to investigate the nature of reinforcement learning impairments and aberrant habit formation in cocaine use disorder.

In 2022, he was appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry, where he continued his work on applying computational models of cognition to understand the mechanisms underlying addictive behaviours. In 2024, he was awarded a Griffith Edwards Academic Fellowship by the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) to study the computational and biological substrates of risky decisions in cocaine use disorder. He joined Wolfson College as a Junior Research Fellow in January 2025.

The long-term use of addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, and opioids, is thought to alter brain systems integral for adaptive behaviour, including learning, memory, and impulse control. Changes in these brain systems are presumed to lead to addictive behaviours (e.g., risky drug use, overwhelming drug cravings). However, it is unclear how an ‘addicted’ brain generates these impairments, thereby posing a challenge for developing effective treatments.

Tsen Vei’s research seeks to bridge this knowledge gap by adopting a computational psychiatry approach – using mathematical algorithms to understand how the brain generates psychiatric symptoms and behaviour. By modelling behaviour mathematically, this approach enables researchers to quantify unobservable cognitive subprocesses, offering precise insights into how maladaptive behaviours are generated.

His current research combines behavioural paradigms, neuroimaging, and computational analysis to map the neurocomputational profiles of substance use disorders. By identifying the mechanisms that drive maladaptive behaviour, Tsen Vei hopes that his research could support the development of targeted treatments.

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Art Exhibition: Wolfson at 60

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Graduation Ceremony

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Research Appetisers

05/08/2025 at 18.00

Come and hear our part-time students talk about their research at this informal evening of short presentations and friendly discussion.

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Open Cambridge - Tree Trail

06/09/2025 at 10.00

A self-guided Tree Trail around the beautiful and varied garden 'rooms' of the grounds at Wolfson College.

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Open Cambridge - Poetry Trail

12/09/2025 at 10.00

Follow our self-guided trail through the College gardens which feature extracts of poetry written by Wolfson members from our latest WolfWords poetry anthology, press play. 

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