| Project Detail |
Everyday decisions, such as deciding what to eat or whether to exercise, have a profound effect on our long-term health. Both stress and a diagnosis of certain psychiatric disorders are two factors which can impact these decisions often resulting in detrimental health outcomes. BETTERCHOICES will investigate the biological mechanisms of this altered decision making and test the effectiveness of a behavioural strategy which aims to improve decision making. In STUDY 1, I will investigate how pharmacological increases in two key stress related neuromodulators - cortisol and noradrenaline - affect participants willingness to exert effort to obtain rewards (RO1). Additionally, I will test whether precommitment can buffer the detrimental effects of increases in cortisol and noradrenaline action on effort-based decisions (RO2). Precommitment involves pre-emptively restricting one’s future choice set to improve decision making, yet we do not know how or if people use this strategy under stress or in psychiatric disorders. In STUDY 2, I will develop a novel task, the precommit-to-eat paradigm, to precisely quantify the individual effectiveness of precommitment when participants make food choices (RO3). This paradigm will then be used to test the effectiveness of precommitment in patients with a diagnosis of depression or schizophrenia during a non-academic placement in a psychiatric clinic. During the non-academic placement, I will also implement a psychoeducation program to help patients make better health decisions using behavioural strategies, such as precommitment. By using an interdisciplinary approach and combining methodologies from psychopharmacology and behavioural economics, BETTERCHOICES will provide novel insights into how we make decisions under stress. The project will also help to improve everyday decision making both in healthy participants and in psychiatric disorders thereby promoting better health outcomes. |
