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In this post  Kengo Miyazono  (Hiroshima) and  Ryan McKay  (Royal Holloway) summarise their new paper “ Explaining delusional beliefs: a hybrid model ”, in which they present and defend a hybrid theory of the development of delusions that incorporates the central ideas of two influential (yet sometimes bitterly opposing) theoretical approaches to delusions—the two-factor theory and the prediction error theory.  There are at least two influential candidates for a global theory of delusions (i.e., a theory that explains many kinds of delusions, rather than particular kinds of delusions such as persecutory delusions) in the recent literature: the two-factor theory (Coltheart, 2007 ; Coltheart, Menzies, & Sutton, 2010 ; Coltheart, Langdon, & McKay, 2011 ), according to which delusions are explained by two distinct neurocognitive factors with different explanatory roles, and the prediction error theory (Corlett et al., 2010 ; Corlett, Honey, & Fletcher, 2...

Today's post is by Kengo Miyazono , Hiroshima University, who talks about his latest book, Delusions and Beliefs (Routledge 2018). This book addresses the following theoretical questions about delusions: (1) The Nature Question : What is a delusion? In particular, what kind of mental state is it? The standard view in psychiatry is that delusions are beliefs. But, is this view (‘doxasticism about delusion’) really true? Delusions have a number of peculiar features that are not belief-like, such as the remarkable insensitivity to evidence. Are these peculiar features consistent with the doxastic conception of delusions? (2) The Pathology Question : Delusions are pathological mental states. Delusions, together with other symptoms, warrant clinical diagnoses and treatments. Why are delusions pathological? What distinguishes pathological delusions from non-pathological irrational beliefs? Are delusions pathological because they are too irrational? Or, are they pathological because they...

On 15th October at Hornton Grange Matthew Broome , director of the Institute for Mental Health  in Birmingham, chaired the book launch of Delusions in Context (Palgrave Pivot, 2018), a collection of four new papers on delusions. The book is truly interdisciplinary, featuring authors with a background in psychiatry, lived experience, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy, and is available open access on the Springer website . I edited the book. At the launch, I explained how the book fits with the work we have been doing as part of project PERFECT . In the project one of the objectives is to examine whether beliefs that we consider as epistemically irrational (either not supported by existing evidence, or resistant to new counter-evidence) can nonetheless have some benefits for the person who adopts such beliefs. Benefits could be cashed out in terms of increased wellbeing or reduced anxiety, enhanced motivation to pursue epistemic goals, or better performance in some ...

The Royal College of Psychiatrists hosted its  Faculty of Neuropsychiatry Annual Conference on 13-14 September 2018 in London. I was fortunate to attend the first day and I am going to report on some of the interesting talks I listened to. In the first session speakers focused on neuroscience for psychiatrists, and Paul Johns, author of Clinical Neuroscience , addressed the functional anatomy of the human amygdala. The amygdala is constantly looking out for dangers and helps us evaluate the emotional significance of events. It facilitates social interactions as it enables us to read other people's minds. Further, the amygdala is involved in learning and episodic memory for important events. It is responsible for an implicit emotional memory of negative events to help us avoid adverse stimuli. The amygdala is for assessing environmental cues to determine the adequate response to threats. So patients without the amygdala are fearless but it is possible to experimentally induce a pan...