P01-381 - A Model of Manic Thought Disorder Using a Semantic Network and Disordered Thread Salience
European Psychiatry January 1, 2010 C.P. Arun
Manic thought disorder (MTD) may arise from an inappropriate assignment of salience to threads scanning the semantic network, rather than from a disordered lexicon alone. The authors modeled the mental lexicon as a semantic network and simulated thought generation as a walk along this directed graph. By assigning weights to vertices and edges, they replicated features of MTD including pressure of speech, clang associations, and flight-of-ideas. The model proposes that antipsychotics reduce inappropriate thread salience, leading to the disappearance of MTD. The authors argue that understanding MTD is important for revealing the mental computational processes underlying normal thought and its disorders.