Title: Towards a mechanistic understanding of the emergence of positive psychotic symptoms

Speaker: Marta Garrido (Head, Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Lab,

Director, Melbourne OP-MEG facility

Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology

Research Program Lead, Graeme Clark Institute for Biomedical Engineering

Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne)

Location: In Person & Online via Zoom

Abstract: Computational Psychiatry uses mathematical modelling with two major goals: 1) to build new AI-inspired psychiatric instruments to aid diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment; and 2) to understand the mechanisms underpinning aberrant experiences in people with a psychiatric condition. In this talk, I will present our recent contributions to both goals. Relevant to the first goal, I will demonstrate the usefulness of prediction error alterations in psychosis combined with brain imaging data-driven AI methods for informing diagnosis and mapping symptom severity to specific brain regions. The second goal is theoretically driven. I will show how we have empirically adjudicated between conflicting Bayesian models to explain the occurrence of altered perceptual experiences via top-down and bottom-up processing aberrancies across the continuum of psychosis.

Website: https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/research/msps-research-groups/C2NP/lab#about