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C02: Aggressive decisions in social conflicts: Neuro-cognitive models for healthy individuals and psychiatric patients with high scores of aggression

Develop virtual scenarios to assess decision strategies in cartoon-like and naturalistic contexts. The core question is how healthy individuals and patients make (mal-)adaptive aggressive decisions in social conflicts given their threat sensitivity, cognitive functions, and learning experience. We plan to present mathematically well-defined aggressive decision scenarios to healthy participants as well as patients across diagnostic categories with high scores of aggressive behavior, threat sensitivity, and inference of hostile intent in others. Computational models that accurately explain behavioral choices and neural responses (tested using fMRI and pupillometry) will be developed to identify the aggressive decision strategies humans employ in approach-avoidance conflicts of increasing complexity and ecological realism. The purpose will be to determine if patients use overly aggressive strategies that are not warranted by the necessary defense of self-threats and underlying neural circuits.

Contributors

Christoph Korn

C02: Aggressive decisions in social conflicts: Neuro-cognitive models for healthy individuals and psychiatric patients with high scores of aggression Principal investigator Quality control group member Heidelberg University

Prof Christoph Korn heads the Decision Neuroscience of Human Interactions laboratory (http://www.dnhi-lab.org/) at Heidelberg University in the Department of General Adult Psychiatry. He is particularly interested in decision-making behaviour, especially in social situations, and its neuronal basis. To this end, he uses computational models and also focuses on psychiatric disorders. Junior Professor Christoph Korn’s research group is funded as part of the Emmy Noethe Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Klaus Mathiak

B03: A process-based brain-computer interface to modulate aggressive behavior – a real-time fMRI neurofeedback study C02: Aggressive decisions in social conflicts: Neuro-cognitive models for healthy individuals and psychiatric patients with high scores of aggression Q02: Data management for computational modelling Equal opportunity committee member Principal investigator Research data committee member RWTH Aachen

Klaus Mathiak is a professor at RWTH Aachen University, specializing in psychiatry and psychotherapy. His research integrates neuroimaging, psychophysiology, and clinical studies to understand the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition, aggression, and media influence on behavior. Mathiak’s work aims to enhance therapeutic interventions for psychiatric disorders by elucidating the brain’s role in social and emotional processing.