Group leader: Trine Vik Lagerberg

The Mechanisms of Psychopathology group investigates factors driving the wide variation in symptoms seen in psychotic disorders over time and across individuals. The aim is to identify mechanisms that can inform more personalized treatment in schizophrenia and bipolar spectrum disorders.

The group focuses especially on emotional dysregulation, substance use and sleep, using digital tools such as smartphone applications and actigraphy to capture detailed symptom and behaviour patterns in daily life. These data are integrated with cognitive, brain imaging, genetic, biochemical and clinical assessments in collaboration with other research groups.

By mapping temporal relationships between symptom dimensions, the group seeks to clarify whether they act as drivers or consequences of core symptoms, to identify early signs of relapse, and to define subgroups and illness profiles through a transdiagnostic “deep phenotyping” approach.