Quentin Huys is Professor of Computational Psychiatry at University College London. He is also the deputy director of the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry, and a consultant psychiatrist. As one of the founding fathers of the field of Computational psychiatry, we are very excited to have him visit!
Programme
10.30-11.30: Keynote lecture by Prof. Quentin Huys, MD: titled: Computational mechanisms in psychotherapy
11.30-12.30: Short talks by local researchers.
Local talks:
Egbert Hartstra – DCCN – Estimating controllability: the role of the mPFC and association with depression.
Imogen Leaning - DCMN - Searching for clinical signal in behavioural smartphone data
Paul Lagerweij – RadboudUMC Psychiatry – Examining Pavlovian-to-instrumental transer in depression
Abstract Keynote by Quentin Huys
Computational psychiatry attempts to translate advances in computational
neuroscience and machine learning into improved outcomes for patients. Here, I
describe recent work on mechanistic approaches to support the correct assignment
of psychotherapeutic interventions to individuals.
Psychotherapies are one of the core treatment options available for depression.
However, despite an extensive theoretical basis for interventions, our
understanding of the underlying mechanisms mediating treatment response remains
poor. Here, I will describe work suggesting that a combination of computational
models and cognitive tasks may enable the measurement of the cognitive processes
engaged by therapies. Critically, for the case of cognitive-behavioural therapy
for depression, we find a double dissociation, with effort-reward tradeoffs
engaged preferentially by behavioural activation, and learning about
attributions preferentially altered by cognitive restructuring. Furthermore,
improvement in symptoms in a realistic treatment setting is related, and
possibly mediated, by changes in Pavlovian biases measuring using a task and
a computational model. By contrast, exploratory analyses of Pavlovian
aversive biases in a randomized controlled trial of sertraline appeared to
increase early on in treatment responders. Finally, the cognitive measurement
process enables us to design novel training interventions.