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.
