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Misinterpreting reality: Investigating the neural basis of hallucinatory percepts

Objective

Psychotic disorders are amongst the most debilitating psychiatric conditions, estimated to have a global lifetime prevalence of 3%. Unlike other challenges in biomedicine, psychiatric conditions such as psychosis are predominantly characterized by subjectively experienced symptoms (e.g. hallucinations). A promising approach has conceptualized hallucination-like percepts (HALIPs) as confidently reporting a stimulus that was not presented, providing a tractable model of hallucinations across humans and animals. However, recent findings suggest that commonly used methods to measure subjective experience may be confounded by decision biases unrelated to perception. This raises the critical question of whether HALIPs truly reflect perceptual distortions, or instead decisional strategies. The answer is crucial: if HALIPs are not perceptual, animal models and clinical trials based on them risk mischaracterise the mechanisms of hallucinations, ultimately undermining treatment development.

The MISHAPS project aims to resolve this issue by establishing whether HALIPs arise from altered perception and by comparing them to the neural signatures of subjective experience in humans. Using a novel behavioral paradigm that isolates perception from decision-making, I will: (I) determine the extent to which HALIPs are perceptual, (ii) examine the role of dopamine-related physiological signals in their occurrence, and (iii) identify the neural markers of HALIPs using magnetoencephalography. By clarifying the perceptual basis of hallucinatory experiences, MISHAPS will strengthen translational models of hallucinations, advance computational psychiatry, and provide a framework that can be leveraged in pharmaceutical research, for instance by offering objective and bias-resistant behavioural markers to evaluate the efficacy of drugs targeting hallucinatory symptoms.

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 260 347,92
Address
GOWER STREET
WC1E 6BT LONDON
United Kingdom

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Region
London Inner London — West Camden and City of London
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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