Fields of research

 

Cognitive, Affective and Social Neuroscience / Psychiatry

 

Research Theme

 

       The SAN team gathers together four PIs with complementary expertise in affective neuroscience, social neuroscience, and psychiatry. Our project focuses on the functional neuroanatomy of the emotional brain. We study the brain systems of emotion detection, evaluation, and regulation, with an emphasis on how social processes (eg social inclusion) activate and regulate the emotional brain. Dysfunction of the emotional brain is central to many mental disorders and in particular to major depressive disorder (MDD). We aim at defining new biomarkers and treatments for MDD.

       Social processes refer to a set of cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in our ability to interact with others and navigate the social world, including processes of face perception, self/other representation, social inclusion, etc. These processes are essential for adaptive behaviour. They are underpinned by brain systems that overlap with the emotional brain, a set of distributed cortical, subcortical, and limbic regions involved in emotional perception and regulation.

       Our first objective is to advance knowledge on the reciprocal interaction of the brain systems dedicated to social processes and the emotional brain. We aim at clarifying the role of the visual cortex and of core regions of the emotional brain (amygdala, OFC) in the emotional perception of social and non social stimuli. We study how self-other perception influence the emotional regulation brain system, and the impact of social rejection and inclusion signals on emotional perception and regulation. Moreover, we develop a translational and reverse translational approach by applying our paradigms to healthy subjects and to subjects at risk of (viz. anhedonics) or with actual psychiatric disorders (viz. major depressive disorder, MDD, treatment resistant depression, TRD, obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD). Dysfunction of the emotional brain is central to the physiopathology of MDD. Another objective is to uncover the role of social processes in the dysfunction of the emotional brain of depressed patients. More specifically, by studying the sensitivity to social signals and self-referential processes we will shed light on the interaction between the salience network and the emotional regulation network of the emotional brain and on their role in MDD. Moreover, we aim at developping innovative therapeutic approach in TRD and OCD based on brain stimulation through transmagnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS).

       Our project will contribute to unravel the functional architecture of the emotional brain and the social brain and to provide a brain-based definition of mental disorders. In the longer term, this may contribute to personalized medicine in the treatment of depression and other mental disorders.