Decision making, context and psychosis: An investigation of impaired context processing as an underlying mechanism of symptoms and disfunction in non-affective psychosis | C4C

Nonaffective psychosis (i.e. psychosis in the schizophrenia spectrum) is an illness with devastating consequences. Patients’ interactions are hampered by an inability to correct their paranoid beliefs about othersin response to contextual information. An insensitivity to context has been suggested to drive the progression from subclinical paranoid ideations to full-blown psychotic symptoms. Whilst of utter importance for the development of explanatory models and intervention methods for the illness, the underlying neural mechanisms of impaired context processing and its response to treatment remain unknown. This study will use brain imaging techniques in conjunction with a diary technique to investigate the associated brain and daily-life mechanisms of context proecessing. This project will significantly contribute to the explanation of psychotic symptoms and real-life functioning in schizophrenia by elucidating the underlying mechanisms of disturbed context processing.