All posts tagged: Brain Explorer App

Outreach Projects

Our goal is to make scientific research accessible beyond a scientific audience. Through our outreach events we have connected with the public by creating a space for scientists and the community to have inspiring conversations. Our flagship outreach project “OCD and the Brain” – a project co-produced with people with lived experience and OCD charities – has recently won the 2024 ERC Public Engagement with Research Award. Some of our previous outreach events include: Royal Society Lates: what’s on your mind? Brain Explorer and OCD and the Brain had taken over the Wolfson Library Suite as a part of an evening exploring brains and cutting-edge neuroscience research. New Scientist Live We joined the MRF (Medical Research Foundation) to bring Brain Explorer to New Scientist’s celebration of science and innovation. Interested in our outreach projects and our studies? please reach out: Contact

Fluctuations in motivation and decision-making

Today, will you socialise after work or stay at home? Will you do exercise or relax and watch tv? How do you decide whether its worth making extra effort? And why is it that some days this is easier than others? Previous research has shown that when deciding whether to do something effortful, people weigh up whether they think the benefits outweight the costs. However, in the real-world people seem to vary a lot in how willing they are to make effort over time. Some days we feel full of energy and motivation, and choose to make more effort whereas other days we lack motivation and choose to avoid effort. We do not have a good scientific understanding of what causes our choices to change like this, mostly because typically studies measure people’s decision making on just one single day. We investigated how people’s motivation changes using a study with smartphone games as people went about their daily life. We sent people notifications asking them to tell us how motivated, happy and tired they felt …

Q&A with Lead Researcher Tobias Hauser Featured on Nature Mental Health

We are thrilled to announce that a compelling Q&A session with Tobias Hauser, head of the Developmental Computational Psychiatry lab, has been published on the Nature Mental Health website. In this exclusive interview, Tobias delves into his groundbreaking research in the advancing field of Computational Psychiatry and discusses innovative approaches to understanding and addressing mental health challenges. To read the full Q&A with Tobias Hauser, please visit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-024-00231-3

Event at the Royal Society

https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2024/02/lates-brains/ Join us on Wednesday 21/02/24 for an exciting event at the The Royal Society – we will be there presenting Brain Explorer (www.brainexplorer.net) and our recently co-produced OCD and the Brain (www.ocdandthebrain.com). Looking forward to seeing you all there!

In the News

Our study, led by Johanna Habicht on optimism bias in childhood has been covered in the widely read German science magazine Bild der Wissenschaft. You can read the article here: https://www.wissenschaft.de/gesellschaft-psychologie/kleine-optimisten/

Brain Explorer Research App released

Why do most mental health illnesses first manifest before adulthood? Our group has launched a new smartphone app to investigate how brain development is linked to mental health in a new citizen science project. The Brain Explorer app (www.brainexplorer.net) uses the latest state-of-the-art insights from neuroscience research to investigate brain functions in fun and entertaining games for young and old. By playing these games, people can learn about their own brain functions, and at the same time help the researchers to better understand how brain functions are related to the emergence of mental health problems. “We know that the brain changes substantially during adolescence”, says Dr Tobias Hauser, lead scientist on the project, “but we do not know how impaired brain development causes mental health problems. This app will help us understand why mental health problems arise during adolescence.” A better understanding of how abnormal brain development leads to mental health problems will allow researchers to build new models to predict emerging psychiatric illnesses and can help develop novel interventions. Everyone can contribute to research …