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Transforming the understanding
and treatment of mental illnesses.

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Social Neuroscience and Communication in Adult Psychopathology Program

Overview

This program supports interdisciplinary research on the biological and behavioral underpinnings of social processes and their abnormalities in psychiatric disorders. The goals of this program are to characterize the mechanisms that cause impairment in social cognition, communication, and social functioning in mental disorders, as well as to develop and test novel interventions for these impairments. Ultimately, this program seeks to channel basic scientific knowledge of social processes into greater clinical understandings and novel treatment avenues.

Areas of Emphasis

  1. Supporting translational research on social neuroscience in adult populations, to find new strategies for treating social cognitive and communication dysfunction in psychiatric illnesses
  2. Identifying similarities and differences in social, communicatory or cooperative (working together) behavior across psychiatric disorders
  3. Examinations of the behavioral and biological underpinnings of abnormal social interactions in psychiatric disorders
  4. Using integrated multimodal methods (e.g., ecological momentary assessments, behavior, electrophysiology, and neuroimaging) to characterize social abnormalities in psychiatric disorders

Contact

David I. Leitman, Ph.D.
Program Chief
6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 7104 MSC 9625
301-827-6131 david.leitman@nih.gov