INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLAR AWARD RECIPIENTS
Alan Ceaser
SNI Interdisciplinary Scholar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Bio
Alan Ceaser is a postdoctoral fellow with Jong Yoon in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He received his PhD in Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis in August 2015. The goal of his research is to better understand the neural mechanisms of complex cognition like working memory and executive control, particularly in the context of psychiatric diseases like psychosis, and to translate this work to improve treatment outcomes and functioning of individuals with psychotic spectrum disorders.
Sponsor
Jong Yoon (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences)
Cognitive remediation to reduce striatal dysregulation and improve clinical outcomes for individuals with psychosis
Psychosis is a complex clinical disorder that has a devastating impact on those who suffer from it. In addition to symptoms like hallucinations and delusions, individuals with psychosis experience deficits of cognition that further complicate their lives and treatment outcomes. Recent work has shown that a subcortical region of the brain is the locus of a pronounced dopamine abnormality when comparing individuals with psychosis to those without psychosis (dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is thought to play an important role in psychotic symptoms). There is evidence to suggest that this brain region also may play an important role in our ability to remember goals and guide subsequent behavioral accordingly. Not surprisingly, this type of goal related behavior, and particularly the ability to ignore distracters, is impaired for individuals with psychosis and also negatively impacts treatment and function outcomes. Remediating this impairment could reduce symptom severity and improve treatment outcomes for individuals with psychosis. The current study proposes to further examine the relationship between subcortical dysregulation, goal related behavior, and symptom expression. We will also attempt to remediate distracter susceptibility through a cognitive training intervention. Individuals with psychotic symptoms and non-psychotic controls will undergo clinical assessment, cognitive testing, and an fMRI scan to establish a baseline of behavioral and neural functioning. Some participants will take part in a cognitive remediation intervention, where they will be trained to ignore visual and auditory distraction. After the completion of this training period participants will undergo a second instance of clinical assessment, cognitive testing, and an fMRI scan. We predict that individuals who underwent training will show an improvement of distracter resistance, and patients in particular will show decreased subcortical brain activity during distracter presentation as well as reduced symptom expression. If successful, this training regiment could improve the likelihood that individuals with psychosis will be able to find and hold gainful employment, reach their academic goals, and reduce the frequency of hospitalizations.
