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Deepa Purushothaman, MD

she/her/hers
Postdoctoral Associate; Early Detection and Assessment Co-ordinator , Psychiatry - STEP program

Research Summary

Dr.Deepa's research is focussed on social cognition in Schizophrenia. Under the guidance of Dr.Naren P. Rao, she did her doctoral thesis on co-operative and altruistic behavior in humans. Using a novel neuro-economic paradigm based on game theory (Stag hunt game and Dictator game), she compared prosocial behaviors of typically developing individuals and subjects with Schizophrenia and found that individuals with Schizophrenia exhibit deficits in risky cooperative behavior. As a follow up, she also studied the effect of Intranasal Vasopressin on improving prosocial behaviors in Schizophrenia and found that the Dictator game allocations went up on Intranasal vasopressin.

Research Interests

Delusions; Neurobiology; Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders; Default Mode Network; Social Cognition

Selected Publications