2.3 Computational Psychiatry: The Missing Link (and Missing Ralph). (20th March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cohen, Jonathan
• Is Part Of: Schizophrenia bulletin. Volume 43(2017)Supplement 1
• Page Start: S1
• Page End: S2
• Publication Date: 2017-03-20
• Subjects: Schizophrenia -- Periodicals; Schizophrenia -- Research -- Periodicals; 616.898005
• DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbx021.004
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0586-7614

Abstract

Abstract: Overall Abstract: For well over a century, psychiatry has struggled to understand how disturbances of brain function give rise to mental illnesses and ply such an understanding in their treatment. With the exception of some fortuitous—and for the most part serendipitous—findings, this effort has all but failed. I will argue that this is for 3 reasons: (1) the preponderance of psychiatric research has focused on levels of analysis that are either too low (e.g., biochemical) or too high (symptomological cataloguing); (2) efforts to straddle levels of analysis have for the most part either ignored the intermediate, "systems" level of analysis, and/or have focused on specific subsystems, considering them in isolation of the intimate interactions they have with one another. This state of affairs is understandable: The human brain is arguably the most complex device in the known universe, and reverse engineering it is perhaps the greatest challenge science has faced. Remarkably, however, psychiatric research has largely eschewed the most powerful tools that science has for addressing complexity and that has been the mainstay of virtually every other scientific discipline: mathematical and computational analysis. This is the third, and I believe the most, important factor that has impeded progress in psychiatric research. Ralph Hoffman was a visionary in anticipating this need and being the first to address it. He was literally a man ahead of his time. Fortunately, over the past 2 decades, the world has begun to catch up with Ralph. In my talk, I will review the ground-breaking contributions that Ralph made, and some of the developments that his work anticipated and helped inspire on the path to toward a truly scientific project for psychology and neuroscience: computational psychiatry.