Description | Jerillyn Kent, PhD Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota From Motor Abnormalities to Social Cognition Deficits in Psychotic Disorders: Novel Avenues of Investigation and Intervention Motor dysfunction in psychotic disorders is often conceptualized as an epiphenomenon of neurodevelopmental abnormalities rather than as relevant to the cardinal symptoms of these disorders. In this talk, Dr. Kent will outline germane theoretical and empirical literature and pose the novel question of whether motor abnormalities are related to social cognition dysfunction in psychotic disorders via motor resonance, a component of social cognition referring to shared neural activity between an observer and performer of an action. In addition to describing current efforts to interrogate this question, she will present unpublished data from projects exploring other aspects of social cognition in psychotic disorders. Specifically, she will present the results of studies investigating the neural correlates of theory of mind and the effect of biological sex and gender on emotion recognition in individuals with psychotic disorders and their first-degree relatives. Finally, she will discuss a number of potential avenues for intervention development and augmentation stemming from both her motor- and social cognition-focused lines of research. This free lecture is part of the candidate review for an assistant professor position in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology. |
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