Enriching cognitive tasks with behavioural measures for mental health (ECoBeM)
Project overview
This project aims to create a new network of researchers who use behavioural or cognitive measures (e.g. questionnaires, assessments and tasks) to help understand or characterise mental health dysfunctions. Currently the methods used to collect these types of data can be time-consuming or require particular training, while many have a tendancy to be unspecific, unsensitive and lack repeatability. These limitations are holding back the field of behavioural and cognitive dysfunction research, and this community brings together key people to answer the problem by identifying and driving solutions and improvements.
Community lead
Bristol: Emma Cahill, James Hodge, Emma Robinson, Sarah Sullivan
Cardiff: Aline Bompas (PI), Jeremy Hall, Neil Harrison, Sophie Legge, Amy Lynham, Claudia Metzler-Baddeley, Petroc Sumner
Exeter: Silvana Mareva, Piotr Slowinski
Bath: Katherine Button, Tom Lancaster, Karin Petrini
Awarded
January 2025
Current tools (batteries of cognitive assessments, tasks and questionnaires) used routinely by researchers and clinicians to measure behavioural and cognitive (dys)functions have multiple limitations. Some of them are practical (quick, easy to administer and analyse) but others require specialist training and are time consuming. They can also be very unspecific, unsensitive and lack repeatability. These limitations are holding the field back. The ability to measure subtle effects is vital for early diagnosis, drug discovery and understanding which factors (omics, neurological, environmental etc) lead to behavioural and cognitive dysfunctions associated with poor mental health and why.
This new research community will:
- Hold a series of meetings and a two-day workshop to generate knowledge and shared understanding of behavioural and cognitive measures currently in use, initiating a discussion on the pros and cons of existing measures, examining how they could be improved and describing the barriers to shifting practices;
- Identify examples where improvements are desirable, feasible and potentially impactful, and pilot technical improvements via experimental trials with reimbursement for participants;
- Hold a two-day writing retreat to prepare funding applications to develop and validate more specific and sensitive cognitive tasks.
