6 MILLION EUROS FOR RESEARCH PROJECT: FOCUS ON DECISION-MAKING BIAS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDERS

The project is being funded with around six million euros by the renowned British foundation Wellcome Trust. The project aims to decipher the underlying neural mechanisms and use them to develop new, targeted therapeutic approaches.

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

Many people with schizophrenia exhibit the phenomenon known as “jumping to conclusions”: decisions are made hastily and are rarely questioned. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, on the other hand, the opposite prevails – sufferers collect excessive amounts of information and delay decisions for so long that they become incapable of acting. Both strategies are expressions of disturbed cognitive processes that have hardly been explicitly treated in clinical practice to date.

NEW RESEARCH APPROACH WITH TRANSLATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Led by Prof. Dr. Tobias Hauser from the Department of General Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Tübingen University Hospital, the team is pursuing an innovative research approach: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 150 patients with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder will be examined, creating the most extensive data set to date on these specific decision-making processes.

At the same time, mouse models are being used to investigate the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine and its influence on neural decision-making networks. This allows biological and computer-based findings to be combined and transferred to clinical development.

CLINICAL IMPLEMENTATION AT THE UKE

The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), under the direction of Prof. Dr. Lena Jelinek, is responsible for the clinical-therapeutic part of the project. The aim is to use the research results to develop new treatment strategies that specifically target the disturbed decision-making mechanisms and thus improve the quality of life of those affected.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

In addition to the University Medical Center Tübingen and the UKE, the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tübingen), the National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences in Bangalore (India), and the Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona (Spain) are also participating in the five-year research project.

Tobias Hauser says: “We want to understand why people with certain mental illnesses make decisions either too quickly or not at all – and use this knowledge to develop therapeutic strategies that address the root causes.”