Projects
The CANL is involved in a number of ongoing research projects.
Emotion-Attention Interactions
Emotional stimuli capture our attention. This can be advantageous (it is useful to attend to threats), but can also be disadvantageous, leading for instance to crashes. We are interested in understanding the mechanisms that allow this to happen, and whether the extent to which this happens is related to important aspects of personality and psychopathology
The General Factor of Psychopathology in Psychosis and Severe Mental Illness
This study tests the structure of psychopathology symptoms in severe mental illness. Structure in this context refers to the extent to which different symptoms co-occur in an organized manner across diagnostic categories. The project specifically assesses the hypothesis that individuals with psychotic symptoms score high on a general nonspecific factor of psychopathology, as well as scoring high on a specific “thought disorders” factor. The study further examines the extent to which scores on these two factors are predictive of neurobiological features observed on MRI examination, and predict the course of psychiatric symptoms. This study is conducted in coordination with Stephan Heckers and Neil Woodward at Vanderbilt University Medical School.
The Dimensional Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5
The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM5 (SCID), is the gold standard interview for assigning psychiatric diagnoses. However, it is not well adapted for more dimensional models of psychopathology because it many areas it ignores the intensity of symptoms, and it often fails to assess symptoms if the person cannot meet criteria for a disorder, even though those symptoms might be present. To overcome these limitations, we designed a dimensional version of SCID that provides scoring of transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology, while retaining the ability to make categorical diagnoses. We are currently assessing the reliability of this methodology.
Negative Intrusive Thoughts
Frequent negative intrusive thoughts are a core component of multiple forms of mental health conditions, yet there is little research to date that has measured what happens in the brain at the moment that an intrusive thought occurs. Real-time measurement of intrusive thoughts is needed to understand the brain states under which the intrusive thoughts occur. Understanding these brain states may in the future help in the development of treatments for people who experience frequent negative intrusive thoughts and images. We are currently piloting behavioral tasks intended to be used during an MRI scan to explore the brain areas involved during intrusive thoughts and voluntary suppression of those thoughts.
Contingency Perception
An illusion of negative contingency occurs when the contingency between an unrelated cue and outcome are mistakenly judged to be inversely related. This online project aims to determine how the negative contingency illusion is impacted by the framing of the instructions, the severity of outcomes and experience with other positive and negative contingencies. It additionally examines the relationship between susceptibility to contingency illusions and individual differences in superstitiousness, obsessive-compulsive traits, and real-world behaviors. In each trial of the online study participants view streams of 60 rapid presentations of a cue (food) and outcome (allergic reaction), and then rate the degree to which the outcome was contingent on the cue. After completing the rating trials, participants complete self-report questions about personality and obsessive beliefs.
fMRI of Brain Dynamics
Understanding the causes of mental health disorders is essential for designing treatments capable of relieving its suffering. Here we use a novel approach to measuring the rate of brain state changes to test whether this aspect of brain functions is related to certain personality and cognitive traits that differ between people and also arise in specific mental health disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).