Remediation of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Neurostimulation-Enhanced Behavioural Remediation of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia (NERS-SC).
IRAS ID
191986
Contact name
Rachel L. C. Mitchell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Our study will test how distorted judgements of time and the relation between cause and effect contribute to misunderstandings of social intentions in schizophrenia. We aim to discover more about the mental processes and brain mechanisms involved, and ascertain how we might take advantage of this information to improve social skills.
Social cognition concerns how we think about others and how this influences our behaviour, feelings, and social interactions. Indeed, one of the daily challenges we face is the need to understand the intentions of others. Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder with profoundly impaired social cognition, which impacts on a person’s ability to function in everyday life. This project will assess social cognition deficits in schizophrenia, and conduct a pilot study of a brain stimulation intervention designed to improve these deficits. Everyday cognition relies on recognising and correctly interpreting associations between different stimuli or events. Yet in schizophrenia, the time windows used for identifying events as linked, are less precise than in people without schizophrenia. This lack of precision can lead to impaired social interactions.
The project will use time perception training exercises to assess if ‘brain training’ can improve the ability to judge social intentions. The exercises will be enhanced with non-invasive brain stimulation to the brain regions that calculate physical causality. The effects of training will be measured with EEG recordings, to clarify the brain mechanism involved. Performance on clinical measures will be compared before and after training, to determine possible improvements in symptoms and well-being.
Such work is important, because these impairments can lead to difficulties in interpersonal communication, reducing social participation and increasing loneliness in already vulnerable people. Our ultimate aim is to build more comprehensive models of impairment that will provide concrete targets for tackling the root causes and reducing their effects.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0072
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jan 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion