March Newsletter | 2025 Issue #1Shared on behalf of Dr. Lena Palaniyappan & the Discourse Executive Committee. By Paulina Dzialoszynski |
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Hello! Please see below the exciting news coming from Discourse in Psychosis collaborators across the globe. |
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A note from Montreal:Hello everyone, I am looking forward to our Chicago gathering in a few weeks from now.
The program committee, led by Sunny Tang has put together an excellent day of talks and panels with the input from our generous host partners, led by Vijay Mittal.
I am delighted to announce that this year we are supporting 10 ECRs to attend the meeting. Just like in the last 2 years, this has been made possible by a generous support from Francois Bourgeois Foundation’s support through a research chair that I hold at the McGill. This year we have a Bourgeois Chair Prize, a DISCOURSE Open Science Award and a DISCOURSE Rising Star Award in addition to 7 ECR Awards. Thanks to Natalia Mota for leading the selection panel.
Scroll below to read more about our Lived Experience Panel at the Chicago event and a thought-provoking blog post on language-focused remediation programs in psychosis from Marta Bosia.
Collaborative science has faced its challenges lately, and I extend my gratitude to all who can make the journey to Chicago, as well as my support for those who had to make the tough choice to sit this one out.
See you soon! Lena |
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Discourse Impact StatementWe continually track total grant amounts that is generated through the existence of the Discourse consortium – this is important in order to prepare impact statements and obtain further resources for the network. So, please reach out to Betsy.Schaefer@lhsc.on.ca with any new grant funds you have received since March 2024-2025, that reference our network, working groups and/or protocol in funding applications. |
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Discourse Satellite MeetingApril 3rd, 2025 Deadline To Register March 7th, 2025 |
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Location – Chicago, Illinois, USA
The meeting will also be live-streamed to allow for virtual attendance, registration required.
This year’s meeting will feature a Lived Experience Panel featuring three accomplished guests. Please see their biographies attached below as well as a QR code to submit questions for the panelists to answer at the satellite meeting. |
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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. |
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Discourse Committees and Work GroupsPlease see the attached document for the Discourse Committees and Work Groups list of members. |
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Discourse ChroniclePlease see the attached PDF of Marta Bosia’s Blog post. |
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We are looking for volunteers to submit blogs for upcoming Discourse Newsletters. If you’re interested in contributing please contact Betsy Schaefer. |
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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
Achim AM, et al. Use of reference markers in the speech of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Evidence from two referential communication tasks manipulating common ground with the interaction partner. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition. 2025 Jun 1;40:100343.
Ahuja et al., Quantitative natural language processing markers of psychoactive drug effects: A pre-registered systematic review. Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2025;0(0). doi:10.1177/02698811251319455
Huang et al., Default Mode Network, Disorganization and Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaf018
Nichini et al., Characterizing the patient experience of physical restraint in psychiatric settings via a linguistic, sentiment, and metaphor analysis. Sci Rep 15, 2111 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83999-9
Palaniyappan L et al., Naturalistic computational psychiatry: How to get there? J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2025 Feb 7;50(1):E67-E72. https://www.jpn.ca/content/50/1/E67
Palominos, C., He, R., Fröhlich, K. et al. Approximating the semantic space: word embedding techniques in psychiatric speech analysis. Schizophr 10, 114 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41537-024-00524-7
Toyota E, et al. Cerebellum as a neural substrate for impoverishment in early psychosis. Neuropsychologia. 2025 Feb 21:109094. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109094
Bambini V, et al. From semantic concreteness to concretism in schizophrenia: An automated linguistic analysis of speech produced in figurative language interpretation. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. 2025 Feb 22:1-23.
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Accomplishments & Awards
In its most recent open call to study neuroscience of symptoms, the Wellcome Trust has awarded $8.7 million (CAD) to a project proposed by DISCOURSE collaborators – “DIALOG: Understanding Disorganisation: A Language-Focused Global Initiative In Psychosis.”
This initiative, led by Lena Palaniyappan and a team of international co-investigators, aims to explore how the neurobiological underpinnings of disorganisation affect speech production and comprehension.
DIALOG will combine neuroimaging and naturalistic language to investigate the role of imprecise predictive processing in disorganisation. The project will utilize Large Language Models (LLM) applied to speech recordings and large-scale participant data from MRI, PET, and MEG tools. By examining the brain’s architecture at synaptic, neuronal, and oscillatory levels, DIALOG seeks to provide a comprehensive neurocomputational framework to understand disorganisation and its impact on social dysfunction in psychosis.
Congratulations to the team, including Iris E. Sommer (Netherlands), Susan L. Rossell (Australia), Tilo Kircher (Germany), Gina R. Kuperberg (USA), Valentina Bambini (Italy), Neil A. Harrison (UK), and Krish D. Singh (UK). |
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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 |
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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! |
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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 |
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Discourse Protocol
The Discourse Protocol is now being used around the world for harmonized data collection. Most recently, Dutch, Russian and Malayalam translations have been added. 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, which can be found here. |
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