Abstract
A central goal of computational psychiatry is to identify systematic relationships
between transdiagnostic dimensions of psychiatric symptomatology and the latent learning
and decision-making computations that inform individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and
choices. Most psychiatric disorders emerge prior to adulthood, yet little work has
extended these computational approaches to study the development of psychopathology.
Here, we lay out a roadmap for future studies implementing this approach by developing
empirically and theoretically informed hypotheses about how developmental changes
in model-based control of action and Pavlovian learning processes may modulate vulnerability
to anxiety and addiction. We highlight how insights from studies leveraging computational
approaches to characterize the normative developmental trajectories of clinically
relevant learning and decision-making processes may suggest promising avenues for
future developmental computational psychiatry research.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 10, 2023
Accepted:
February 7,
2023
Received in revised form:
February 5,
2023
Received:
October 20,
2022
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© 2023 Society of Biological Psychiatry.