Descripción del proyecto
Explorar los mecanismos de defensa humanos
Las personas, cuando se ven amenazadas, realizan de inmediato una amplia gama de medidas defensivas. Dado que los trastornos de ansiedad implican algunos de esos comportamientos, resulta importante entender los mecanismos de selección de medidas cuando una persona se ve amenazada. Los conceptos actuales del comportamiento de defensa de las personas derivan de la investigación con roedores y se centran en una pequeña cantidad de grandes pautas de acciones entre especies. Dado que ello no explica la complejidad de los mecanismos de selección de las medidas fundamentales, el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos ActionContraThreat intentará entender dichos mecanismos psicológicos y explicar su aplicación neuronal. El proyecto se basa en un método cognitivo y computacional a fin de especificar sistemáticamente el espacio de medidas cuando se sufre una amenaza, explorar el mecanismo psicológico que condiciona la selección de medidas y describirlas con algoritmos computacionales que permitan realizar predicciones cuantitativas.
Objetivo
Run away, sidestep, duck-and-cover, watch: when under threat, humans immediately choreograph a large repertoire of defensive actions. Understanding action-selection under threat is important for anybody wanting to explain why anxiety disorders imply some of these behaviours in harmless situations. Current concepts of human defensive behaviour are largely derived from rodent research and focus on a small number of broad, cross-species, action tendencies. This is likely to underestimate the complexity of the underlying action-selection mechanisms. This research programme will take decisive steps to understand these psychological mechanisms and elucidate their neural implementation.
To elicit threat-related action in the laboratory, I will use virtual reality computer games with full body motion, and track actions with motion-capture technology. Based on a cognitive-computational framework, I will systematically characterise the space of actions under threat, investigate the psychological mechanisms by which actions are selected in different scenarios, and describe them with computational algorithms that allow quantitative predictions. To independently verify their neural implementation, I will use wearable magnetoencephalography (MEG) in freely moving subjects.
This proposal fills a lacuna between defence system concepts based on rodent research, emotion psychology, and clinical accounts of anxiety disorders. By combining a stringent experimental approach with the formalism of cognitive-computational psychology, it furnishes a unique opportunity to understand the mechanisms of action-selection under threat, and how these are distinct from more general-purpose action-selection systems. Beyond its immediate scope, the proposal has a potential to lead to a better understanding of anxiety disorders, and to pave the way towards improved diagnostics and therapies.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitución de acogida
53113 Bonn
Alemania