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Neuroscience

Affiliates of the Institute of Mental Health with expertise in Neuroscience.

Agatha Alves Anet

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Cognition | Global Mental Health | Mood Disorders | Wellbeing

Humma Andleeb

PhD student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Psychological Interventions | Epidemiology | Global Mental Health | Wellbeing | Psychosocial | Children and Young People's Mental Health

Sarah Ashley

PhD student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Epidemiology | Psychosocial | Mood Disorders | Children and Young People's Mental Health

Dan Bang

Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

I study how humans build mental models of the world for behavioural control, with a focus on social behaviour. Social interaction is remarkably complex: an action that is rewarded in one context may be punished in another, and what we think or feel may clash with the behaviour that is required of us. I seek to understand how humans solve such problems, using behavioural testing, computational modelling and neuroimaging. These techniques allow me to characterise the cognitive processes underlying behaviour and study their implementation in the brain. A biologically-informed account of human social behaviour is important for advancing our understanding of disorders of mental health. Many mental disorders are social in nature – they manifest in interactions between people – but we lack a mechanistic explanation of what has gone awry.

Other research interests include

Cognition | Mood Disorders | Psychosocial | Neuromodulation

Daniel Bendor

Associate Professor, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

James Bisby

Lecturer, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Cognition

Michael Bloomfield

Principal Clinical Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Dr Bloomfield's work seeks to understand the mechanisms underlying how exposure to risk factors for mental illness during childhood and adolescence alter adult brain and cognitive function to give rise to mental illnesses so that new treatment and preventative interventions can be developed.  He has been awarded an Excellence Fellowship from University College London, the British Medical Association's Margaret Temple Award for schizophrenia research, the British Association of Psychopharmaocology's BAP Award for Junior Clinical Psychopharmacologist of the Year and the Royal College of Psychiatrists Trainee of the Year award.  In addition he has received young investigator awards from the European College of Neuropsychopharmocology, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and major international research societies.

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Pharmacology | Psychological Interventions | Trauma


Henrietta Bowden-Jones 

Consultant Psychiatrist in Behavioural Addictions, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Digital Health | Epidemiology | Global Mental Health | Neuroscience | Substance abuse | Behavioural addictions

Elvira Bramon

Professor of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Division of Psychiatry

I’m interested in biological markers of brain function and structure that can be used to characterise psychosis. In particular, I have expertise in using EEG techniques like evoked potentials and quantitative EEG and have also worked with structural imaging and cognitive biomarkers for psychosis.

Other research interests include

Cognition | Pharmacology | Serious Mental Illness | Genomics


Ella Burchill

Academic Foundation Doctor, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Dementia | Epidemiology | Serious Mental Illness | Older Adult Mental Health

Marc Aurel Busche

Programme Leader at the UK DRI and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Queen Square, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Dementia | Older Adult Mental Health | Cognition


Dorina Cadar     

Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Epidemiology & Health Cognition 

Other research interests include

Dementia | Epidemiology | Psychosocial  

Christina Carlisi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

I am a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Wellcome research fellow in the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit at University College London. Through my fellowship, I am also affiliated with the Laboratory of NeuroGenetics at Duke University. My current research uses computational methods (e.g. computational modelling, psychophysics) to examine affective processing. I am interested in how individual differences in diverse factors such as early life experiences and neurobiological mechanisms give rise to (or protect us from) the development of mental health problems and am particularly interested in developing more sensitive measures of individual differences to study how behavioural traits such as anxiety and conduct problems develop across childhood and adolescence.

Other research interests include

Epidemiology | Mood Disorders | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition


George Chapman

Honorary research fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Dementia | Pharmacology | Older Adult Mental Health | Serious Mental Illness

James J Cox

Associate Professor, Division of Medicine

David Curtis

Honorary Professor, Division of Biosciences

Since 1990 I collaborated with Hugh Gurling at the UCL Molecular Psychiatry Lab in research aimed at identifying genes affecting risk of mental illness. Initially we carried out linkage studies of families multiply affected with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Subsequently I have been involved in association studies and latterly studies using next generation sequencing data. Throughout this time I have also developed new statistical approaches and have written computer software to carry out genetic analyses. I am currently working on methods for detecting genetic variants affecting risk of complex diseases using large exome-sequenced datasets.

Other research interests include

Dementia Mood Disorders | Serious Mental Illness

Ravi Das

Associate Professor, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Pharmacology Psychological Interventions | Serious Mental IllnessSubstance Abuse

Anthony David

Professor of Mental Health Director & Sackler Chair, UCL Institute of Mental Health

I graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1980 and trained in neurology before entering psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London.  I also have a Masters degree in Cognitive Neuropsychology.  I was an honorary consultant at the Maudsley from 1990-2018 and was awarded a personal chair from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London in 1996. I was Vice Dean for Academic Psychiatry at the IoPPN in 2013-8.

Other research interests include

Serious Mental IllnessCognition | Epidemiology | Physical Health

Quentin Dercon    

PhD student in mental health science (UCL-Wellcome programme), Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Cognition | Epidemiology | Psychological Interventions

Stephen Fleming

Sir Henry Dale Fellow, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Dementia Mood Disorders Psychological Interventions | Cognition

Aikaterini Fotopoulou

Professor, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Katerina’s research aims to understand the interface between mental and somatic health and ultimately advance the treatment of related health disorders, including unawareness following stroke, functional motor and eating disorders. Katerina has published around 100 papers (see below for full list) and edited the volume Fotopoulou, A. Conway, M.A. Pfaff, D. From the Couch to the Lab: Trends in Psychodynamic Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2012. Her grant’s portfolio totals approximately 4.2 million EUR, including two ERC grants.

Other research interests include

Physical Health | Serious Mental Illness | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition


 

India Francis-Crossley

PhD Research Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Epidemiology | Psychosocial | Cognition | Serious Mental Illness

Sabina Funk

Research Associate, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Cognition | Dementia | Global Mental Health Mood Disorders Older Adult Mental Health | Psychological Interventions | Wellbeing

Anne Gaule

PhD Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Psychosocial | Wellbeing | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition

Eriko Gavinio

PhD Student and Clinical Psychologist, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Psychological Interventions | Psychosocial | Wellbeing

James Gilleen

Senior Lecturer, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Pharmacology | Psychological Interventions Wellbeing Serious Mental Illness | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition

Laura Grover

Research Assistant, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Older Adult Mental Health | Mood Disorders | Epidemiology Dementia


Antonia Hamilton

Professor of Social Neuroscience, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Neuroscience Children and Young People's Mental Health


Lasana Harris

Professor of Social Neuroscience, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Psychological Interventions | Neuroscience | Stigma

Tobias Hauser

Principle Research Fellow, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Digital Health | Pharmacology


Jemma Hazan 

SpR / Academic Clinical Fellow, Division of Psychiatry    

Other research interests include

Older Adult Mental Health 

Samuel Hewitt

PhD Student, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Mood Disorders

Aaron Kandola

PhD Candidate, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Mood DisordersPhysical Health | Wellbeing | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Epidemiology


Sunjeev Kamboj

Professor of Translational Clinical Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Trauma | Substance abuse | Pharmacology


Karel Kieslich

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Substance Abuse | Pharmacology | Epidemiology


Emma Jayne Kilford

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Mood Disorders | Global Mental Health | Digital Health

Peter A. Kirk

PhD in the Leverhulme Doctoral Training Program for the Ecological Study of the Brain, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Mood DisordersCognition

Christian Lambert

Principal Research Associate/Honorary Consultant Neurologist, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Cognition | Dementia | Neuroscience | Parkinson's disease and Parkinsonian syndromes

Jennifer F. Linden

Professor of Neuroscience, Ear Institute

Human beings effortlessly perform complex feats of sound perception and auditory learning; for example, identifying new friends on the telephone just from the way they say hello; predicting a family member's arrival home by the sound of the car alone; or recognizing music from mere snippets heard while flipping through channels on the radio. These everyday yet remarkable abilities depend on listening and learning mechanisms within the brain, not just hearing mechanisms within the ear.  Research in my laboratory is aimed at understanding these brain mechanisms of listening and learning, especially in the auditory cortex and thalamus.

Other research interests include

Schizophrenia | Developmental Language Disorders

Rick Livesey

Professor of Stem Cell Biology, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

Other research interests include

Dementia | Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Mekeda X Logan

Research Assistant, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Epidemiology Global Mental Health | Children and Young People's Mental Health 

Alexis An Yee Low

PhD Student, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Psychological InterventionsMood Disorders

Millie Lowther

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Psychological InterventionsCognition | Mood Disorders

Andrew MacAskill

Sir Henry Dale Fellow, Division of Biosciences

We are working to understand how neurons in the brain communicate with each other to allow them to encode emotional behaviours and make decisions. Problems with this communication underlie the vast majority of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases, and so our aim is to find novel ways to combat these diseases by gaining a greater understanding of the processes that they destroy.  

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Mood Disorders | Pharmacology | Substance Abuse

Natalie Marchant

Senior Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Dementia | Psychological InterventionsOlder Adult Mental Health | Cognition

Peter Martin

Lecturer in Applied Statistics, Institute of Epidemiology and Health

I work with psychological therapists and academic psychologists to conduct randomized controlled trials of psychological therapies. These studies evaluate new interventions and estimate how effective they are. We also use mixed methods to investigate the therapy process and to find out why and how, not just if, therapies are successful.

I am a member of ChAPTRe, the Child Attachment and Psychological Therapies Research unit at the Anna Freud Centre and UCL.

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Epidemiology Psychological Interventions

Andrew McWilliams

Clinical Research Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Epidemiology | Liason Psychiatry

Carlos Mena

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Cognition | Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Psychosocial | Anxiety

Eamon McCrory     

Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Psychological InterventionsTrauma | Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions

Kate Merritt

Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

My research interest is neuroimaging biomarkers of schizophrenia and psychosis. My previous work examined 1H-MRS measures of glutamate in the brain, and their relationship with treatment response in schizophrenia. My current work characterises the neurodevelopmental trajectories of psychotic experiences, and how social risk factors impact brain development to cause psychotic experiences.

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Epidemiology | Pharmacology Children and Young People's Mental Health 

Agnes Norbury

Research Fellow, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Digital Health | Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions

Andrei Okorokov

Associate Professor, Division of Medicine

Pain is a major clinical problem and affects more people than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. Pain is a cofactor in many medical conditions yet pain medicines are often only partially effective, and the problem is increasing with an aging population. By understanding the cellular and molecular processes that lead to the sensation of pain, more effective targeted therapies can be developed to alleviate suffering. 

Other research interests include

Pain

Paula Oliveira

Honorary Researcher, Anna Freud Centre

Other research interests include

Psychosocial | Psychological Interventions | Children and Young People's Mental Health 

Sami Omar Amawi

Core trainee in psychiatry, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders Serious Mental Illness | Substance Abuse | Trauma


Jakub Onysk

PhD Student, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Cognition | Psychological Interventions | Suicide and Self-harm | Machine learning methods in the context of neuroscience and mental health 

Vasiliki Orgeta

Associate Professor, Division of Psychiatry

Dr Vasiliki Orgeta is a research psychologist interested in emotional well-being in people with dementia and their family carers. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of  psychological and psychosocial interventions in dementia and mild cognitive impairment. She is also interested in how stress could be influencing risk of dementia and the effect of caregiving on caregivers physical and mental health.

Other research interests include

Wellbeing | Physical Health | Psychosocial | Older Adult Mental Health | Epidemiology | Psychological Interventions | Mood Disorders | Dementia | Cognition


Panayiota Petrochilos

Consultant Neuropsychiatrist and Department lead for Neuropsychiatry, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Dementia | Psychological Interventions


Harriet Phillips    

Research Assistant

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health \ Trauma | Conduct problems 

Giulia Piazza

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Pharmacology | Psychosocial | Cognition


Tua Piehl 

Headquarters Administrator, UK Dementia Research Insitute

Other research interests include

Dementia | Serious Mental Illness | Trauma | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Psychological Interventions 

Alexandra Pike

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Cognition


Gary Price

Consultant Neuropsychiatrist , Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Dementia | Psychological InterventionsCognition | Pharmacology

Oliver Robinson

ICN Group Leader, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

We try to better understand anxiety disorders and 'normal' adaptive anxiety and how they relate. We use threat of shock, functional magnetic resonance imaging, computational psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychopharmacology techniques. We ultimately want to improve outcomes for sufferers of anxiety. For more details visit my lab website: www.oliverjrobinson.com

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Pharmacology | Psychological Interventions | Cognition

Jonathan Roiser

Professor of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Our aim is to understand the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying symptoms of mental illness, especially those relating to motivation. We utilise experimental techniques drawn from cognitive psychology, functional neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, and computational modelling, both in patient populations and healthy volunteers.

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Mood DisordersPharmacology Physical Health | Psychological Interventions 

Elizabeth Sampson

Clinical Professor, Division of Psychiatry

My research focuses on key clinical issues for frail older people. My main areas of interest are:

  • Dementia and delirium in acute hospital patients: Epidemiology and health services research 
  • Identifying, better understanding and managing common symptoms, including pain, delirium and difficulty swallowing. 
  • Using mixed methods (data, cohort studies co-design) to implement better care.
  • Liaison psychiatry for older hospital inpatients

Other research interests include

Older Adult Mental Health | Physical Health | Liaison Psychiatry | Dementia

Gabrielle Sheehan

Clinical Research Assistant, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders Older Adult Mental Health | Anxiety and depression in older adults and Parkinson's disease

Karin Shmueli

Associate Professor in MRI, Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering

I am interested in developing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques to increase image contrast and resolution by exploiting new contrast mechanisms. The current goal of my research programme is to characterise frequency and susceptibility contrasts and to develop and translate MRI techniques exploiting these mechanisms to improve disease diagnosis and monitoring of therapies. Conventional MRI uses only the signal magnitude, but utilising the frequency (or phase) of the MRI signal has dramatically improved visualisation of tissue structure and can reveal tissue composition. During my previous post at the USA National Institutes of Health, I developed new methods to calculate tissue magnetic susceptibility maps from MRI frequency images. MRI tissue Susceptibility Mapping is an exciting technique and a rapidly growing research area. Together with my research group and collaborators, I now aim to unlock the potential of these MRI frequency and susceptibility methods to generate clinical MRI biomarkers of disease.

Other research interests include

Physical Health | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition | Dementia

Andrew Sommerlad

Principal Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Dr Sommerlad uses multiple methodologies including observational research using longitudinal cohorts and routinely collected electronic health records, qualitative research, systematic review and meta-analysis to examine clinically relevant outcomes in dementia and cognition for older people.

Other research interests include

Epidemiology | Older Adult Mental Health | Cognition | Dementia

Maarten Speekenbrink

Professor of Mathematical Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Psychological Interventions | AI for mental health |

Argyris Stringaris

Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Division of Psychiatry

Professor Stringaris is the Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with the Division of Psychiatry and the Psychology and Language Sciences Department at UCL. He was until recently Senior Investigator and Chief of the Section of Clinical and Computational Psychiatry at NIMH/NIH in the USA and before that a Senior Lecturer and Wellcome Trust Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He trained at the Maudsley Hospital.

He is a Clinician Scientist working to understand mood and the mechanisms that lead to depression and severe irritability (emotion dysregulation). He is studying how negative mood states arise and are maintained in the brain. He and his team use a broad range of methodologies stretching from computational modelling to clinical observation and randomised controlled trials in pursuit of understanding about mood. His latest work is about mood changes in the absence of events (Passage of Time Dysphoria) and about why humans may seek negative emotional states (i.e. choose not to be happiness maximisers at least for discrete time periods). He is collaborating broadly across the natural sciences (with engineers, physicists and mathematicians) and the humanities (historians and philosophers of emotions). Clinically, he is treating young people with mental illness, particularly those with severe anxiety and depression.

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Epidemiology | Mood Disorders | Pharmacology

Anahita Talwar

Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Computational Modelling | Psychological Interventions | Cognition

Muhammad Umar

Phd Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders Cognition | Epidemiology |psychiatric genetics |

Vincent Valton

NIHR UCLH BRC Fellow - Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Pharmacology Cognition

Essi Viding

Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

I combine cognitive experimental measures, twin model-fitting, brain imaging, and genotyping to study different developmental pathways to persistent antisocial behaviour and mental health problems more generally.

Other research interests include

Psychosocial | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Cognition

Baihan Wang

PhD Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Cognition


Muhammad Waqar Ashraf Bhatti 

Clinical Psychologist, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Psychological Interventions | Psychosocial | Wellbeing | Pharmacology | Mood Disorders | Health and Social Care | Sexuality

Stephen Wilson

Professor of Developmental Genetics and Vice-Dean for Research, FLS, Division of Biosciences

Other research interests include

Developmental Genetics and Neurobiology | Brain Asymmetry


Marco Wittmann

Independent Senior Research Fellow, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Children and Young People's Mental Health | Mood Disorders | Psychosocial

Ruihan Wu

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Epidemiology | Psychosocial | Cognition | Autism


Mahinda Yogarajah

Consultant neurologist and MRC CARP fellow, Queen Square Institute of Neurology


Kristina Zhelcheska 

PhD student, Queen Square Institute of Neurology    

Other research interests include

Dementia | Cognition | Children and Young People's Mental Health | Neuroscience | Older Adult Mental Health | Trauma | Mood Disorders