Using the platform of the INTEGRATE Model, research projects are investigating individual variation in the healthy brain, and how disruptions to brain organization may express themselves in distinct mental health conditions. Our research includes schizophrenia, ADHD and related conditions, anxiety and depression, anorexia nervosa and conversion disorders.
Following the integrative neuroscience platform, we integrate multiple sources of information:
clinical and psychological assessments
cognitive assessments
brain imaging techniques, both high temporal resolution (EEG/ERPs) and high spatial resolution (MRI/fMRI/DTI)
simultaneously recorded body arousal measures
genetics
Several of the new insights from this research include:
1. Identifying how different emotions are defined by distinct 'signatures' for how the brain and body react
2. Showing that our emotional brain and body reactions can occur without our conscious awareness - especially when we recognize a threat-related cue
3. Evidence that different modes of brain connectivity are associated with different levels of awareness for emotional cues. Perceiving emotion cues in the absence of awareness is supported by a 'feedforward' mode of connectivity. Conscious awareness of these cues emerges when we obtain 'feedback' from the brain and body. This feedback also allows us to feel the emotion associated with the cue.
4. Different mental health conditions are defined by distinct disruptions to emotional brain and body systems:
First episode schizophrenia: A reversal of the normal modes of functional brain connectivity when perceiving emotional cues.
ADHD: A reduction in brain activity associated with the early visual perception of emotion cues, most apparent when there is conscious awareness of these cues - and associated with difficulty in recognizing emotional expressions.
PTSD Anxiety disorder: Excessive activity in the 'feedforward' mode for pereiving threat cues, but a reduction in the 'feedback' mode. This may explain why it is difficult to supress anxiety reactions to reminders of the trauma in PTSD.
Anorexia Nervosa: A reduction in brain activity associated with early visual perception of emotion cues when they are perceived both without and with conscious awareness. When weight is gained, there is a change in activity for conscious perception of these cues, suggesting adaptive strategies to deal with early processing difficulties.
The research involves international collaborations with the Universities of London, Cambridge, Brown, and Pennsylvania, NIA Baltimore, Missouri and UMDNJ.
For current projects, see Cognitive Neuroscience Unit
