Cited by 37Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesMental Health Research Topics

Under the hood: Using computational psychiatry to make psychological therapies more mechanism-focused

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Nair, Akshay, Rutledge, Robb B., Mason, Liam·2020·Frontiers in Psychiatry

Abstract

Psychological therapies, such as CBT, are an important part of the treatment of a range of psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. There is a growing desire to understand the mechanisms by which such therapies effect change so as to improve treatment outcomes. Here we argue that adopting a computational framework may be one such approach. Computational psychiatry aims to provide a theoretical framework for moving between higher-level psychological states (like emotions, decisions and beliefs) to neural circuits, by modeling these constructs mathematically. These models are explicit hypotheses that contain quantifiable variables and parameters derived from each individual's behavior. This approach has two advantages. Firstly, some of the variables described by these models appears to reflect the neural activity of specific brain regions. Secondly, the parameters estimated by these models may offer a unique description of a patient's symptoms which can be used to both tailor therapy and track its effect. In doing so this approach may offer some additional granularity in understanding how psychological therapies, such as CBT, are working. Although this field shows significant promise, we also highlight several of the key hurdles that must first be overcome before clinical translation of computational insights can be realized.

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  • Exposure therapy can be seen as attempts to recalibrate prediction weights by repeated safe exposures, encouraging the brain to assign greater weight to the 'I am safe' prediction relative to the 'something bad will happen' prediction error.

    “Treatments like exposure therapy can be seen as attempts to recalibrate these prediction weights–by repeated safe exposures, the patient’s brain is encouraged to assign greater weight to the “I am safe” prediction relative to the “something bad will happen” prediction error (66).”

    From Predictive coding and neurocomputational psychiatry: a mechanistic framework for understanding mental disorders (2026) · cites this paper as [66]

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Authors
Nair, A., Rutledge, R. B., & Mason, L.
Affiliations
  • UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology (GB)
  • Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
Corresponding author
Mason, Liam
Venue
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Published
2020-03-18
Volume
11
Pages
140-140
ISSN
1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3012224178
Cited by
37
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1
FWCI
5.80
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Medical Research Council
  • Wellcome Trust
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
Keywords
computational psychiatry, cognitive behavioral therapy, neural circuits, personalized treatment, treatment response monitoring, depression, anxiety, clinical translation

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