C02: Aggressive decisions in social conflicts: Neuro-cognitive models for healthy individuals and psychiatric patients with high scores of aggression

Develop virtual scenarios to assess decision strategies in cartoon-like and naturalistic contexts. The core question is how healthy individuals and patients make (mal-)adaptive aggressive decisions in social conflicts given their threat sensitivity, cognitive functions, and learning experience. We plan to present mathematically well-defined aggressive decision scenarios to healthy participants as well as patients across diagnostic categories with high scores of aggressive behavior, threat sensitivity, and inference of hostile intent in others. Computational models that accurately explain behavioral choices and neural responses (tested using fMRI and pupillometry) will be developed to identify the aggressive decision strategies humans employ in approach-avoidance conflicts of increasing complexity and ecological realism. The purpose will be to determine if patients use overly aggressive strategies that are not warranted by the necessary defense of self-threats and underlying neural circuits.