Computational modelling of the neural deficits in schizophrenia

Dr Zachary Howard

Uncovering the causes of perceptual inference deficits in patients with schizophrenia

Research Collaboration Award

$16,500

2022

School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia, collaborating with The University of Newcastle (NSW), Australian National University (Canberra)

Dr Zachary Howard was awarded a Cockell Research Collaboration Award in 2021 which has connected Dr Howard with high profile researchers working at the University of Newcastle in the field of mental health research and has provided new technology to the University of Western Australia. This research collaboration award was undertaken to identify whether similar neural mechanisms are apparent in schizophrenia patients and cannabis users, and to determine the key neural mechanisms related to first on-set of schizophrenia through to chronic disease state.

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness with enormous health and economic costs. Identifying biological causes of schizophrenia could provide avenues for novel treatments or screening tools to help manage these impacts. One important biomarker of schizophrenia is the Mismatch Negativity waveform, an electroencephalogram signature that reflects a reduced ability for schizophrenia patients to recognise environmental patterns. A similar neural deficit is identified in heavy users of cannabis. Given other connections between cannabis and schizophrenia (e.g., cannabis use can accelerate schizophrenia onset) Dr Howard mentioned that it is plausible that combining knowledge from these fields could improve our understanding of the disease.

This research collaboration award integrated researchers who specialise in schizophrenia with researchers who specialise in the neuroscience of cannabis use. Dr Howard performed sophisticated and innovative computational modelling to elucidate the neural deficits from existing data sets which had been collected from schizophrenia patients, and heavy cannabis users, and matched control groups. Despite surface-level similarities in cognitive impairment, the research showed that the underlying neural mechanisms leading to these impairments were fundamentally different betweenschizophrenia patients and cannabis users.

Importantly, Dr Howard and his collaborators have identified key neural mechanisms related to intrinsic neural connections and showed progression of these deficits from first-onset through chronic schizophrenia, which expands our understanding of this ailment and may path the way for targeted treatments to be developed in future. These results have been published in Schizophrenia Bulletin and presented at several conferences.

Dr Howard said: "This grant has improved my standing as an early career researcher, connecting me with high profile collaborators and allowing me to work on projects with high impact that I would not have had access to otherwise".