Research

Our overall aim is to understand the role of the neural mechanisms involved in emotional behaviour in the development of psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, and to investigate whether targeting these mechanisms can help design new therapeutic strategies for psychosis. We do this through three interrelated research themes:

Emotion circuit-based studies of the extended psychosis phenotype

We use neuroimaging methods and behavioural assays to characterise the neural correlates of social and emotional information processing across the psychosis spectrum (schizotypy, clinical high risk of psychosis, first-episode psychosis).

The role of GABA/glutamate balance in emotion brain circuits in psychosis pathophysiology

We combine molecular imaging methods in rodent models of psychosis and in patients in the early stages of psychosis to link molecular mechanisms to functional and behavioural observations.

Can we modulate emotion brain circuits to design new disease-modifying drugs?

We use state-of-the-art translational in vivo imaging methods across species (rodents and humans) to allow a detailed analysis of the effects of pharmacological intervention on emotional brain circuits in the development of psychosis-like phenotypes.

Further research interests - ENIGMA Schizotypy

The aim of the ENIGMA Schizotypy working group is to bring together worldwide schizotypy researchers towards large scale meta-analyses of neuroimaging data across many different studies and datasets, in order to delineate the neural signature of the expression of subclinical psychotic-like experiences in healthy individuals.