October 2022 General Meeting

Speaker

Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D

Summary

Schizophrenia is the most challenging of behavioral health conditions. Treatment and management of symptoms place extraordinary psychological, physical and financial burdens on patients and their families.

One reason why schizophrenia remains a challenge is that the illness’ bases in brain function are poorly understood. A lack of access to data on brain function and an inability to accurately reconstruct brain network interactions are principal contributors to this lack of understanding.

In this presentation from October 20, 2022, Dr. Vaibhav Diwadkar provided a working tutorial on how his group is attempting to address these challenges. He explained the kinds of neuroimaging technologies used, and some of the recent findings that have resulted from studies. Schizophrenia remains a puzzle, but this puzzle might be solved with a better understanding of what schizophrenia does to the working brain.

Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences in Wayne State University’s School of Medicine. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Psychology (Coe College, Iowa) and his PhD in Psychology (Vanderbilt University, Tennessee). Following Fellowships in Neuroimaging and Clinical Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, he joined the faculty in the Dept. of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 before moving to Wayne State University in 2006. His research is at the intersection of several fields including psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, computer science and mathematics.