Hallucinating mice, neural circuits and immunity – towards mechanistic treatments for psychosis

Psychosis is a core feature of severe mental illness, yet its biological basis remains poorly understood. This talk presents a cross-species research programme combining behavioural paradigms, computational modelling, circuit neuroscience and immunology to identify mechanistic treatment targets. We developed a paradigm to measure hallucination-like perception in both humans and mice, revealing key roles for dopamine and acetylcholine. We also established a novel mouse model of autoimmune psychosis, showing how brain-reactive antibodies can disrupt circuits and behaviour and how antipsychotic drugs modulate autoimmune processes. Ongoing work in humans and mice investigates how neural and immune mechanisms interact to drive psychosis and shape perception.