Speaker: Dr Christophe Mathys, University College, London

Abstract: Navigating an uncertain environment requires the continual tracking and prediction of relevant states of the outside world. Perhaps surprisingly, the computations needed to do this can be formalized using only a small number of concepts whose relation to each other follows the same pattern across domains of application. I will introduce these concepts - namely predictions, prediction errors, and precision ratios - and the way they relate to each other. Given their generality, it is plausible that their misalignment might underlie many aspects of psychiatric illness. I will show how such misalignments have been used to explain psychiatric symptoms, and I will briefly introduce some of the neurobiological models involved in these explanations.