How does our mind and brain interpret unusual experiences?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Cognitive and Neural Processes in the Pathway to Psychosis
IRAS ID
119725
Contact name
Raphael Underwood
Contact email
Research summary
Surveys have shown that there is a continuity between ‘normality’ and ‘psychosis’: some people report unusual experiences such as hearing voices, without it becoming a problem for them, and thus do not develop a ‘need for care’. Psychological models of psychosis have suggested that it is the meaning or interpretation given to such experiences that determines whether or not they develop into a diagnosable mental illness.
Previous research has shown that negative or ‘maladaptive’ interpretations of unusual experiences are important in differentiating between individuals who stay well and those who become ill. A small number of recent studies using experimental tasks that induce unusual experiences have found that those with a need for care make significantly more maladaptive interpretations of unusual experiences than those without a need for care.
Maladaptive interpretations have also been shown to contribute to the paranoid delusions often present in psychotic illness. A recent functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study showed that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for psychosis helped reduce brain responses to negative facial expressions, demonstrating that changes in psychological interpretations (of threat) are identifiable at the level of brain activity.
This project will expand upon these findings by carrying out two studies. In the first study we will adapt existing tasks designed to induce unusual experiences for use with fMRI, and then validate these adapted tasks outside of the MRI scanner by comparing interpretations in those with a ‘need for care’ (remitted and symptomatic patients) with those without a ‘need for care’ (non-patients experiencing positive symptoms). Additionally, we will examine potential differences in interpretations of positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions in a facial emotion processing task.
The second study will use the two most effective anomalous experience inducing tasks and an implicit (as opposed to explicit) facial emotion processing task while participants lie in an MRI scanner to examine whether differences in interpretations between those with and without a ‘need for care’ are reflected at the level of brain activity.REC name
London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0390
Date of REC Opinion
21 May 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion