Author: at3353

Alexander Harris
Department of Psychiatry
Columbia University

Reward seeking is disrupted in a variety of psychiatric disorders impacted by stress. However, it remains unclear what neural activity is responsible for stress-induced disruptions in reward seeking. In this talk, I will describe our work using in vivo electrophysiology and optogenetic manipulations in freely moving mice demonstrating that a subpopulation of inhibitory neurons in the reward circuit form the link between acute stress and subsequent decreased reward anticipation. I will also share our ongoing work exploring the role of reward circuitry during the social buffering of stress.  

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Katharina Schmack
Department of Psychiatry
Francis Crick Institute & University College London

Is computational psychiatry more than a buzzword? This talk will explore how computational psychiatry can capture psychotic symptoms across species and facilitate biological investigations into psychosis. I will present a computational-behavioural approach for measuring hallucination-like perception in humans and mice, which has helped to elucidate a causal neural circuit mechanism relevant to psychosis. I will conclude by discussing the tremendous opportunities that arise from using computational psychiatry to unlock the toolkit of biological science for psychiatry.  

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Warren Mansell
Professor of Mental Health
Curtin University, Perth

Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) was first introduced by William T. Powers in 1960 to provide an alternative account of behaviour to the dominant behavioural theories and emergent cognitive theories at the time. Derived from the principles of classical control engineering, Powers proposed that behaviour is the control of perceptual input, and specified the computational framework to operationalise the purposive behaviour of living organisms, including humans. Control is the default functioning of our brain and bodies, and it runs smoothly unless conflict occurs – defined as having opposing goal states for the same variable. According to PCT, psychopathology is characterised by loss of control that is maintained by processes that exacerbate conflict and/or prevent the exploration of conflict within conscious awareness. I will provide an overview of my own work in this field including: (a) basic lab tests of PCT; (b) modelling of individualised sensorimotor control processes; (c) modelling of goal conflict resolution; (d) plans for modelling of mental health recovery for personalised interventions – known as Dynamic Catalysts.  

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Michael Treadway
Department of Psychology
Emory University

Despite the broad literature examining the causes and consequences of mood, the concept of mood remains to be ambiguous. Prior work suggests that reward, effort, and exploration each contribute to mood, yet most laboratory assessments have assessed the impact of these variables in isolation. In this talk, I will present data from six samples using a novel effortful exploration task. We find that effort expenditure, exploration, reward and their trial-wise prediction-errors are independent predictors of momentary mood. Importantly, effort appeared to have dual, opposing effects on mood: on one hand, increased effort expenditure predicted more negative mood, and on the other hand, reward predicted subsequent mood only when foraging required effort. Finally, I will present preliminary evidence supporting a causal role for dmPFC in the impact of effort on mood using temporal interference (TI), a novel non-invasive deep-brain stimulation method. Taken together, these data seek to advance our understanding of mood and shed light on the paradoxical nature of effort as having both value-enhancing and discounting effects.  

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Rebecca Kazinka
Department of Psychiatry
University of Minnesota Medical School

Persecutory ideation is a common experience in psychosis, yet also presents in other neuropsychiatric disorders and even in the general population. However, our understanding of the neural mechanism of persecutory ideation is relatively unclear. My work focuses on building a construct strongly related to persecutory ideation to better understand the associated neural processes that drive decisions. In this talk, I will present our findings showing that spite sensitivity, i.e., a worry that another person will intentionally incur a loss to ensure that you do as well, provides a model for understand persecutory ideation. We built a computational model of spite sensitivity using an economic game called the Minnesota Trust Game (MTG), which is a modified version of the trust game with two conditions in which the partner is either incentivized or disincentivized to behave fairly. Through several studies in undergraduates, individuals with psychosis, and monozygotic twins, we show that spite sensitivity predicts persecutory ideation and is associated with activation in the lateral OFC. This model provides a means of quantifying persecutory ideation and may be useful for future clinical applications.  

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