Research

Research conducted in the Centre for Clinical, Social and Cognitive Neuroscience bridges the gap between questions on fundamental aspects of human cognition and their neurological basis, and applied research that has direct impact for stakeholders in the general population, as well as clinical populations.

We seek to understand, transform, and enrich the lives of individuals and communities through improved understanding of the biological underpinnings of the human experience, with emphasis on mental health and wellbeing, social interaction and decision making (e.g., in law, education and the work field).

Our members conduct research in four key themes:

Clinical Neuroscience

• understand emergence, maintenance, and treatment of psychosis, utilizing experimental, neuroimaging and genetic methods
• investigate the neural basis of psychological therapies, like mindfulness-based therapy.

Social Neuroscience

• study the mechanisms that underlie various aspects of social functioning, such as loneliness and social isolation, in the general population and in individuals with psychotic disorders, other mental health conditions and neurodevelopmental disorders
• understand neural basis of prosocial behaviour
• shed light on the perceptual mechanisms (e.g., somatosensory attention, face perception, early visual processing) that underpin our social interactions
• enhance social cognition in Williams Syndrome and psychosis.

Cognitive Neuroscience

• understand the role of body perception in embodied cognition, including emotion perception and self-awareness.
• aid temporal perception in sports decision making.
• mitigate attentional biases in clinical and health psychology.

Computational Neuroscience

• develop an artificial intelligence system to identify problem gambling cues
• develop a quantum probability framework for human probabilistic inference.