mouse psychiatrist COMPUTATIONAL PSYCHIATRY

Computational Psychiatry

Computational Psychiatry

Can we objectively diagnose psychiatric conditions and map them across species to improve treatments?

We developed objective measures for subjective behaviors like confidence and apathy, bridging human experiences with quantitative metrics. By creating computational-behavioral frameworks, we have modeled psychiatric phenomena across species, facilitating translational research. For instance, we operationalized apathy—a dimension of depression—as effort sensitivity, a measurable parameter across species. We are expanding our quantitative behavioral approach to develop objective diagnostics and animal models, addressing critical challenges in psychiatry.

Selected Publications

Computational validity: using computation to translate behaviours across species
Redish AD, Kepecs A, Anderson LM, Calvin OL, Grissom NM, Haynos AF, Heilbronner SR, Herman AB, Jacob S, Ma S, Vilares I.. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. (2022) 2022 Feb 14;377(1844):20200525

Apparent sunk cost effect in rational agents
Ott T, P Masset, TS Gouvêa, Kepecs A. Science Advances (2022) 8(6):eabi7004

Computational Psychiatry Across Species to Study the Biology of Hallucinations
Schmack K, Ott T, Kepecs A.. JAMA psychiatry (2022) Jan 1;79(1):75-6 PDF DOI

Striatal dopamine mediates hallucination-like perception in mice
Schmack, K., M. Bosc, T. Ott, J. F. Sturgill, Kepecs A. Science (2021) Apr 2;372(6537):eabf4740 DOI

Signatures of a statistical computation in the human sense, of confidence
Sanders, J.I., Hangya, B. & Kepecs A.. Neuron 90(3):499-506 (2016)