SzSA YearBook 2016/17

SZENT-GYÖRGYI MENTORS
SZABOLCS KÉRI
Department of Physiology,
University of Szeged
Address: Dóm tér 10., H-6720 Szeged, Hungary
E: keri.szabolcs.gyula@med.u-szeged.hu
T: +36 62/545 101
RESEARCH AREA
Understanding the basic mechanisms of psychiatric disorders
(schizophrenia, depression, posttraumatic reactions)
is an ultimate challenge for sciences, humanities, and
arts. Our team is dedicated to the delineation of the meeting-point
of these traditionally remote areas of exploration
and discovery, using the tools of neurosciences and psychology.
Beyond the clinical symptoms, we pay an outstanding attention
to the basic cognitive building blocks of psychiatric
disorders (e.g., dysfunctions of perception, attention, and
memory), their neurobiological background, and finally we
seek the link between these fundamental functions and
higher human phenomena (e.g., the impact of psychological
trauma, the relationship among psychotherapy, healing,
and creativity).
What is the relationship between the pathophysiology of
perception and memory and the symptom clusters of hallucinations
and delusions? Why are these symptoms more
common in immigrants and refugees? What is the role of
psychological trauma? What kind of structural and functional
brain plasticity can be found behind the response to
psychotherapy? Is there any chance to find a relationship
between these changes and the molecular mechanisms?
Where is the boundary between medical sciences and humanities?
The research team works at three centers in a strong collaborative
network with several psychiatric units: in addition
to the Department of Physiology at the medical faculty of
the University of Szeged, the network includes the National
Institute for Psychiatry and Addictions, and the Department
of Cognitive Science of Budapest University of Technology
and Economics.
TECHNIQUES AVAILABLE IN THE LAB
Clinical interview and rating scales, narrative deep interview,
administration and development of neuropsychological tests
(SuperCard and E-Prime programming environments), eyetracking,
EEG, structural brain measurements with magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), development and clinical validation
of biochip technologies.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Szily, E., Kéri, Sz. (2013) Delusion proneness and emotion
appraisal in individuals with high psychosis vulnerability.
Clin Psychol Psychother 20: 166-70.
Levy-Gigi, E., Kéri, Sz. (2012) Falling out of time: enhanced
memory for scenes presented at behaviorally irrelevant
points in time in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PLoS
One 7: e42502.
Kéri, Sz. (2011) Solitary minds and social capital: Latent
inhibition, general intellectual functions and social network
size predict creative achievements. Psychol Aesthet Creat
Arts 5: 215-221.
Kéri, Sz., Moustafa, A.A., Myers, C.E., Benedek, G., Gluck, M.A.
(2010) Alpha-Synuclein gene duplication impairs reward
learning. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107: 15992-4.
Kéri, Sz., Beniczky, S., Kelemen, O. (2010) Suppression of the
P50 evoked response and neuregulin 1-induced AKT phosphorylation
in first-episode schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry
167: 444-50.
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