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Excitation-inhibition balance in psychosis - what does it really mean, and can we really measure it?
Over recent decades, the theory that there is an imbalance between excitation and inhibition in cortical circuits in people with psychosis has become increasingly popular. The exact nature of this imbalance is still unclear, however. One issue is that it is conceptually ill-defined. Another reason is that it is hard to measure in vivo. We have found, using rodent recordings of simultaneous LFP and cell spiking data, that most ‘traditional’ measures of E/I imbalance (e.g.m, gamma power, 1/f power spectrum slope, etc) are not reliable. WE have sued computational modelling of Me/EEG and (fMRI) data to show that there is hypo function of excitatory neurone in both established schizophrenia and in the prodromal period (NAPLS2 dataset), although this pathology may not be present in all subgroups of psychosis (analysing ‘biotypes’ from the BSNIP consortium dataset). Symptoms such as hallucinations, however, seem to relate to disinhibition (the opposite effect). I discuss why this might be, and what this might mean for treatments.
This seminar is hosted in person, to join online, please use the Zoom details below:
zoom.us/j/93311812405?pwd=9kbjSbEcO2fa7n7gFLZVqrChvr467B.1
Meeting ID: 933 1181 2405
Passcode: 169396
Date:
3 March 2026, 9:30
Venue:
Seminar Room
Speaker:
Dr Rick Adams (University College London)
Organising department:
Department of Psychiatry
Organiser:
Professor Andrea Cipriani (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
rania.elgarf@psych.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Robert McCutcheon (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Psychiatry Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Rania Elgarf
