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This is the newsletter of the International Master of Affective Neuroscience and the Summer School on Anxiety and Depression.

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Jim van Os	Fear and Psychosis: a Relational Model of Psychopathology   A recently formulated alternative to the study of psychopathology suggests that symtoms, rather than categories or dimensions, may be usefully represented as a network or interactome.  The representation of psychopathology as an interactome can be productively studied at the level of fluctuating momentary mental states, assessed with the Experience Sampling Method, a structured diary method that keeps track of experiences and behaviours as they evolve in daily life. It has been shown that the psychopathology interactome at ESM level is sensitive to staging and profiling of psychopathology, in that the connections of the interactome become stronger and more individually profiled with more advanced stages of psychopathology. An example of how psychopathology interactome at ESM level may develop over time, and how this may relate to traditional diagnostic practice, can be usefully demonstrated by a focus on fear and paranoia. Whereas the categorical diagnostic system is prone to qualitative changes as psychopathology progresses, the ESM psychopathology interactome gives a rich perspective on qualitative and quantitative changes in the fear-paranoia network over time, enabling patient and clinician to actually understand the ‘microlevel’ process underlying traditional symptom and diagnostic constructs of psychopathology.
Ulrike Lueken	The Biology of Psychological Treatment of Fear   Can psychotherapy change the brain, and, can we measure it? This lecture aims at delineating neurobiological substrates of anxiety disorders and neuroplasticity induced by psychological interventions, in particular exposure-based cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).   We will start with some basics on neuroplasticity and emotional-associative learning as a model process for the development, maintenance and modification of pathological forms of anxiety. We will proceed with an overview on functional MRI studies on fear circuitry dysfunctions and changes following CBT, including the combination of novel drugs such as D-Cycloserine and CBT techniques that may augment treatment-induced neuroplasticity. We will close this session by discussing new methods such as multivariate pattern recognition and machine learning that may further close the translational gap between basic science and clinical application by offering diagnostic and prognostic markers, thus informing personalized medicine approaches.
Valerie Curran	Compulsive Drug Use: Lessons for Psychiatric Neuroscience   Drug use often begins as impulsive, reward-driven behaviour but over time can change into the compulsive, habitual behaviours we term addiction.  This transition is accompanied by alterations in several brain circuits and in attention, salience attribution, memory, and decision making.          In this talk I will focus on two remarkable drugs, both of which can lead to addiction, both of which can model psychosis in healthy humans and both of which offer potential as a sources of new medicines in psychiatry: Cannabis and Ketamine.   Finally, I will ask if our increasing scientific understanding has implications for the current boundaries between medicines and illicit drugs.

The European Accreditation Committee in CNS (EACIC) has accredited the Summer Course on Fear, Anxiety, Obsessions & Trauma with 34 CME credits. 

 

Those interested in obtaining the credits need to fill out an online evaluation form on the eacic website after the course. For more information, visit the website of EACIC: www.eacic.eu/.