Yuhan Deng is a PhD student in Department of Psychosis Studies at Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London. She is currently working on the CANDOWN, EfCiP and CANTRIPS projects.

Yuhan finished her BSc in Biochemistry at University of Liverpool, where she found herself intrigued by the pathology of mental disorders and psychopharmacology. She then took a MSc in Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London, where she further improved her knowledge on neurotransmission and how their dysregulation might underline various psychiatric disorders.

While taking a course on the cognitive aspects of psychiatric disorders, she realised that to achieve an all-round understanding of a mental disorder, one may want to learn the disease from different aspects i.e. from microscopic to macroscopic scales (eg: neurogenetics — molecular & cellular neuroscience — cognitive neuroscience).

Holding the idea mentioned above, she studied a second MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, where she further expanded her knowledge on the cognitive deficits of various psychiatric disorders. Right now, she is studying a PhD in Psychosis Studies Research.

Guided by her supervisors Professor Sagnik Bhattacharyya and Dr Kelly Diederen, she is exploring the impact of short-term and long-term cannabis exposure on reward processing, and how these mechanisms may explain an increased risk for psychosis in cannabis users.

Apart from her major, she minor in Psychoacoustics, Music Cognition & Music Therapy at Berklee College of Music as well. She hope one day she could utilise all she has learnt and contribute to the understanding of pathology and development of novel therapeutic interventions of mental disorders. Her dream is to develop diagnostic/prognostic tools of mental health disorders by identifying music cognitive task-related fMRI/EEG biomarkers in the brain.

Research interests

Current PhD Project

Yuhan’s research focuses on systematically investigating acute and long-term effect of cannabis on prediction error (PE) learning and how this might underlie psychotic symptoms in 1) those experiencing acute symptoms following THC administration; 2) those with subclinical psychotic symptoms in the context of regular recreational cannabis use and; 3) those with psychosis comorbid with cannabis use.

To address these aims, her proposed work comprises the following 3 studies:

1. CANDOWN Project
   
   Investigation of the acute effects of THC, the main psychoactive cannabinoid with psychotomimetic effects, on brain activation and connectivity during an instrumental learning task using fMRI in healthy participants.
   
   It was found that acute THC administration attenuated the activation of striatal midbrain during PE processing and augmented the activation of anterior cingulate cortex and insula during salience processing in healthy participants. The extent of THC modulation of activation in these regions was correlated with the THC-induced change in positive psychotic symptoms.
2. EfCiP Project
   
   Investigation of the association between regular cannabis use and alteration in brain activation and connectivity during an instrumental learning task using fMRI by studying a group of people with and without psychotic disorder with and without a history of regular cannabis use.
   
   Impaired task performance and altered recruitment of reward-related regions and their integration would be expected in cannabis users compared to non-users, and this difference may be exaggerated in individuals with psychotic disorder compared to healthy individuals.
   
   
3. CANTRIPS Project
   
   Investigation of the association between the change in extent of cannabis use, change in frequency and associated distress of psychotic-like experiences (PLE), and change in PE processing in a group of individuals with and without a history of regular cannabis use with and without PLEs.