Stefan Kaiser

Function: Professeur ordinaire

Group name: Clinical and experimental psychopathology

Group type: Main

Domains: Affective and Social Neurosciences

Keywords: Apathy, Motivation, Psychotic disorders, Reward, schizophrenia

Research activities

The group’s research focus is on the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. Negative symptoms include apathy (a reduction of motivation) and diminished expression. These symptoms have a strong negative impact on everyday functioning, while the options for treatment remain very limited.

The first research objective is to arrive at a better understanding of the motivational and cognitive processes causing these symptoms. For this goal, we use behavioral experiments and functional magnetic resonance imaging. An important line of research concerns dysfunctions of the reward system that are studied with experiments adapted from fundamental neuroscience. We emphasize the combination of these approaches with the development of instruments for clinical psychopathology aiming at better measurement of negative symptoms.

Improved understanding of negative symptoms is used for developing treatment options for negative symptoms based on the modulation of the underlying processes with psychotherapeutic and biological approaches, for example transcranial magnetic stimulation. We are also use meta-analytic methods to investigate the effects of existing treatments on negative symptoms.

Website

Key publications

Cerebellar and cortico-striatal-midbrain contributions to reward-cognition processes and apathy within the psychosis continuum.

Bègue I, Brakowski J, Seifritz E, Dagher A, Tobler PN, Kirschner M, Kaiser S.

Schizophr Res 246:85-94 (2022)

Orbitofrontal-Striatal Structural Alterations Linked to Negative Symptoms at Different Stages of the Schizophrenia Spectrum.

Kirschner M, Schmidt A, Hodzic-Santor B, Burrer A, Manoliu A, Zeighami Y, Yau Y, Abbasi N, Maatz A, Habermeyer B, Abivardi A, Avram M, Brandl F, Sorg C, Homan P, Riecher-Rössler A, Borgwardt S, Seifritz E, Dagher A, Kaiser S.

Schizophr Bull 47(3):849-863 (2022)

How far to go in deconstructing negative symptoms? Behavioural and neural level evidence for the amotivation domain.

Kaliuzhna M, Kirschner M, Carruzzo F, Hartmann-Riemer MN, Bischof M, Seifritz E, Tobler PN, Kaiser S.

Schizophr Res 236:41-47 (2021)

Cannabis, nicotine and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia: Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.

Sabe M, Zhao N, Kaiser S.

Neurosci Biobehav Rev 116:415-425 (2020)

Deficits in context-dependent adaptive coding in early psychosis and healthy individuals with schizotypal personality traits.

Kirschner M, Haugg A, Manoliu A, Simon JJ, Huys QJM, Seifritz E, Tobler PN, Kaiser S.

Brain 141(9):2806-2819 (2018)

See the complete list of the publications

Videos

Déprimes liées au Covid, les psys débordés

Contact

Département de Psychiatrie
HUG
Email: Stefan.Kaiser@unige.ch