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November Newsletter | 2024 Issue #4Shared on behalf of Dr. Lena Palaniyappan & the Discourse Executive Committee. By Paulina Dzialoszynski |
| | Hello! Please see below the exciting news coming from Discourse in Psychosis collaborators across the globe. |
| |  | | A note from Montreal:
Goodbye, Tim Crow.
To call someone a mentor without the customary ‘catch-up’ meetings might seem presumptuous. Yet, if mentorship is about illuminating the path forward, then perhaps I stand justified.
Tim Crow is no longer with us. His work on language has been a guiding light for many, bridging neuroscience, psychiatry, and linguistic evolution.
When I first encountered Tim Crow in a nondescript Nottingham pub, courtesy of Peter Liddle, I was struck by Tim’s palpable fascination with Huxley. It was as if the great man himself were whispering secrets into Tim’s ear.
Those were the days when I was learning ‘flat mapping’ the brain by reconstructing cortical surfaces with MRI. I recall sounding like a boring real estate agent—obsessed with square meters and areas—while Tim was excited that cortical folding could be linked to evolutionary theories of schizophrenia. He steered the course of the developing idea by listening, not talking; but periodically followed up with word documents that had the fuller argument and impressively large fonts! Hard to imagine another clinician scientist with a similar command of literature. As a true venture scientist, he promptly invested in my ‘start-up’ by sponsoring a sturdy iMac to analyse the stack of MRI images that he had in store.
Tim was often criticised for his fixation on a few problems like asymmetry and the XY chromosomes. His dogged adherence was not to an idea, but to the sanctity of evidence as he perceived it. When new data contradicted his theories, he was remarkably humble, pivoting with grace and on time. His approach to the virus theory of schizophrenia exemplified this: faced with contrary evidence that was the best at that time, he didn’t hesitate to recalibrate his compass.
Tim later invited me to the Robert Sommer symposium at Giessen, one of my favourite academic huddles to date. Months later, when we met to review the first set of results at his Prince of Wales Centre (POWIC) at Oxford, he had already written a draft manuscript from the emails I had sent. The rest of that afternoon was spent with him showing me the artworks at POWIC contributed by patients and telling me why infections cannot explain schizophrenia. Taking a train back to Nottingham, I remember carrying his infectious enthusiasm for explanatory pursuits.
His critique of Genome-Wide Association Studies wasn’t mere contrarianism but a thoughtful objection to the neglect of sex chromosomes—a reminder that scientific investigation is less about being right and more about pursuing truth. He didn’t merely challenge existing paradigms—he reimagined them entirely. His approach to subtyping, clustering, and understanding heterogeneity in psychiatric research was revolutionary. He followed up on how people interpreted his ideas; when misinterpretations arose, he was quick to revise, re-write his reviews and clarify. To me, Tim wasn’t just ahead of his time; he knew what needed to be left behind.
Every student of schizophrenia ought to know how Tim thought about this problem, even if they don’t agree with his conclusions. In the end, perhaps that’s the essence of his legacy: not in rigid adherence to one’s own ideas but in the graceful dance between certainty and doubt. I wonder if this dance tune is the secret that Tim whispers into my ear while I download one of his 1980s PDFs for yet another read.
Lena |
|  | | Discourse Satellite Meeting 2025
Meeting Registration Required ASAP |
| | After a successful 2024 satellite meeting in Pavia, Italy, the Discourse planning committee is pleased to announce the 2025 meeting will occur on April 3rd, 2025 in Chicago, IL, USA, directly after the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Conference.
The meeting will be held at Lurie Medical Research Center. Address: 303 E Superior Street, Chicago, IL USA
Baldwin Auditorium Room Lurie 1-123
We anticipate being able to support a small number of trainees/ECRs with a partial travel support (yet to be finalized), so please indicate if you are requesting support for travel.
The meeting will also be live-streamed to allow for virtual attendance.
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|  | | Discourse MetadatabasePlease see the attached file and add/update to our growing Discourse Metadatabase! Please contact Sunny Tang (stang3@northwell.edu) with any questions. |
| | | Discourse Committees and Work GroupsPlease see the attached document for the Discourse Committees and Work Groups list of members. |
| | | Work Group Updates
Clinical Harmonization Group: The Clinical Harmonization Group has made significant progress in its efforts. We have finalized the variables required from collaborators and developed a standardized sample table for data sharing. Additionally, both long and short versions of the Data Transfer Agreement (DTA) have been distributed to participating sites.To date, 23 studies from 10 countries, representing 8 languages, have expressed interest in contributing data. The estimated combined sample size across these studies is 6,376 subjects. This includes a diverse cohort comprising healthy controls, help-seeking individuals, first-degree relatives, and patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Two sites have already successfully shared their data with us. Looking ahead, we have planned a group meeting at the end of the year to discuss updates and next steps (date and time to be shared shortly). In parallel, we are setting up the analytical code and preparing for preliminary analyses on a smaller subset of the data. These initial analyses will help identify any potential gaps or areas for refinement before moving forward with the full dataset.
Computational Methods Development Group: We had our bi-monthly digital meetings; at the discourse satellite meeting in Pavia, lots of members met in real life, which was great. The group formed a list of 13 projects of our members, some of which are now in the draft & writing phase. We’ve started some repositories of tools & resources that are useful for introducing & sharing with newcomers to the field. The goal for the coming year will be to develop more of the projects into published research. |
| | Discourse ChroniclePlease see the attached PDF of Tuğçe Çabuk Blog post. |
| | | | For your convenience, we will keep seminar details up to date on this public google calendar, which you can subscribe to: https://tinyurl.com/3b568arx |
|  | | | | Special Issue
We are pleased to announce the Upcoming Special Issue “Language in psychosis: a multidisciplinary approach” in Neuropsychologia. The Special Issue, guest edited by Marta Bosia, Lena Palaniyappan, Benjamin Straube and Lin Wang will be published by Neuropsychologia (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/neuropsychologia) in the Language section edited by Valentina Bambini. The focus is on neural underpinnings of language in psychosis. Studies exploring connections between language and brain function, with theoretical and clinical implications, are highly encouraged.
Submission Open Date: 01/09/2024 Final Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30/09/2025
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| | Publications
Fradkin, I., Adams, R.A., Siegelman, N. et al. (October 2024). Latent mechanisms of language disorganization relate to specific dimensions of psychopathology. Nat. Mental Health(2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00351-w
He, R. et al., (October 2024). Changes in the structure of spontaneous speech predict the disruption of hierarchical brain organization in first-episode psychosis. Hum Brain Mapp. 2024 Oct;45(14):e70030. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39301700/
Nikzad, A, H. et al., (November 2024). Evolution of Linguistic Markers of Agency, Centrality and Content During Metacognitive Therapy for Psychosis: A Pilot Exploratory Study. Early Intervention in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.13628
Schneider, K., Alexander, N., Jansen, A. et al. (November 2024). Brain structural associations of syntactic complexity and diversity across schizophrenia spectrum and major depressive disorders, and healthy controls. Schizophr 10, 101 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41537-024-00517-6
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| | Opportunities
PhD opportunity in Pavia, Italy:
A full-time PhD position within the program in “Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics (TEL)” (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia, Italy) will open soon. The PhD student will be supervised by Prof. Valentina Bambini. People interested in pursuing a PhD centered on the topics of language in psychosis, with a focus on pragmatics and extending also to neuropragmatics, could get in contact with Valentina Bambini (valentina.bambini@iusspavia.it). The programme duration is 3 years. Approximate gross salary: €16.243 (per year). Further information is available at the following link: https://www.iusspavia.it/en/education/doctoral-programmes/theoretical-and-experimental-linguistics |
| | | Additional Media
Book: Fought Disorder by Oli Delgaram-NejadFought Disorder tells Oli Delgaram-Nejad’s story of his first psychotic episode, which involved four weeks in psychiatric intensive care. He spent most of that time unmedicated, believing he was on a reality TV show designed by Derren Brown. The book places special emphasis on formal thought disorder, symptoms that affect language, communication, and thought.
Connect with Oli Delgaram via email or X https://x.com/OliNejad |
| | | | Discourse Consortium on X
Connect and follow the Discourse Consortium via X (@discourseinpsy)
Claudio Palominos and Tuğçe Çabuk have graciously taken over the X media in order to promote awareness of the Discourse Consortium and highlight specific research groups and their projects, providing contact information for direct engagement.
Please use the hashtags #psychosis and #discourseconsortium when sharing your posts! |
| | Tell Us About Your Success!
We need to continually track total grant amounts that is generated through the existence of the Discourse consortium – this is important in order to make impact statements about the network. So, please remember to reach out to Paulina pdzialos@uwo.ca or Betsy Betsy.Schaefer@lhsc.on.ca with any new grant funds you have received, that reference our network and/or protocol in funding applications |
| | Discourse Protocol
The Discourse Protocol is now being used around the world for harmonized data collection efforts currently ongoing at many sites, including Canada, Spain, Germany, Croatia, Turkey, India, Serbia, China, Italy, Netherland, Brazil, Chile, Australia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Croatia, US, Slovenia, Denmark. We are working on soon to include a Norwegian Protocol. Please take a look at our Discourse in Psychosis website which now has within the Membership Directory Files a folder containing translations of the Discourse Protocol. The translated versions of the protocol can be found here. https://discourseinpsychosis.org/resources/ |
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