Know your targets: Informing NIBS applications in psychiatry by neurocomputational models of behavioral control

Abstract

Successful use of NIBS for clinical applications requires a-priori definition of both neural and behavioural targets of the intervention. Which characteristics of neural function should be changed by the intervention? Which specific aspects of behaviour should change as a result of this? While the first of these questions can be addressed with increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging tools, we often lack detailed information that would allow us to answer the second. In my talk, I will argue that one way to tackle this challenge is to conduct NIBS studies that systematically test neurocomputational models of the relation between neural function and specific motivations, beliefs, or abilities underlying behavioural control [1] . I will illustrate this approach with recent example studies from our laboratory. These studies have examined how neurally-defined NIBS applications can modulate computationally-defined cognitive and affective processes thought to lie at the heart of behavioural pathologies in autism spectrum disorder (theory of mind; [2] ) or impulse-control disorders (stability of affect-influences on choice; [3] ). While not strictly clinical, these studies demonstrate how the design of clinical NIBS protocols may benefit from approaches that combine mechanistic models of both neural and behavioural processes that are to be affected by the intervention. More generally, I will discuss the opportunities and possible problems associated with attempting to translate this approach into feasible and standardized clinical NIBS protocols.