Neurosalience #S4E16 with Todd Woodward - Pulling out network subtleties with CPCA in Schizophrenia

Today we zoom in on Vancouver British Columbia to interview Dr. Todd Woodward, who is a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and director of the UBC Brain Dynamics Laboratory. He's also the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Schizophrenia Laboratory at BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute in Vancouver.

Dr. Woodward received his Ph.D. in Experimental Neuropsychology at the University of Victoria in 1999, and performed his post-doc in the department of psychology at UBC. Since 2003 he's moved up from research scientist to professor - all at the University of British Columbia. 

He's been working at the interface of processing methods and well-crafted experimental designs to probe the networks that may be disrupted in schizophrenia and other disorders. He and his team developed almost two decades ago a unique and elegant method known as constrained principal component analysis ( or CPCA), which he has been applying successfully with many different tasks.

He's also deeply interested in novel non-pharmaceutical interventions that help augment schizophrenia treatment - having developed a program called metacognitive training (MCT), which may allow those with schizophrenia to be able to step back and begin to assess their own beliefs.

This was such a wide ranging conversation which delved into the nuts and bolts of CPCA as well as the potential future role that neuroimaging can play in better understanding and ultimately treating schizophrenia. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Episode producers:

Omer Faruk Gulban

Xuqian Michelle Li