Séminaire équipe Impact : Dre Franziska Knolle "Understanding Cognitive Alterations in Psychosis Through Computational Modelling"

About the seminar
Recent theories suggest that psychosis is a disorder of altered inference, in which disruptions in belief updating, learning, and decision-making contribute to hallucinations, delusions, and motivational impairments. Computational psychiatry provides a powerful framework for quantifying these latent cognitive processes and linking them to underlying neurobiological mechanisms.
In this talk, Dr Knolle will present work applying computational models across different stages of the psychosis continuum, from individuals with psychotic-like experiences and at-risk mental states to patients with first-episode and chronic psychosis. Drawing on predictive processing frameworks, she will discuss how altered weighting of prior beliefs and sensory evidence may contribute to psychotic symptoms. Results from decision-making and language paradigms will illustrate disturbances in learning under uncertainty, an overreliance on prior beliefs, and impairments in model-based control across the psychosis spectrum.
The seminar will also highlight work combining computational modelling with neuroimaging approaches, including PET and MR spectroscopy, to investigate the neurobiological basis of predictive processing alterations. Together, these studies demonstrate how computational approaches can bridge behaviour, symptoms, and neurobiology, supporting the development of biomarkers for early identification, stratification, and treatment monitoring.

Recent publications
* Goodwin, I., Diederen, K.M.J., Hird, E.J., Weilnhammer, V.; Garrido, M., & Knolle, F. (2026) Predictive processing accounts of psychosis: bottom-up or top-down disruptions. Nat. Mental Health 4, 60–84.
* Knolle, F., Sterner, E., Demler, V. F., MacGregor, L. J., & Mathys, C. (2025). Guided by Expectations: Overweighted Semantic Priors in Schizotypy and their Links to Glutamate. Biological Psychiatry, S0006-3223(25)01299-5.
* Demler, V. F., Sterner, E. F., Wilson, M., Zimmer, C., & Knolle, F. (2024). The impact of spectral basis set composition on estimated levels of cingulate glutamate and its associations with different personality traits. BMC Psychiatry, 24, 320.