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UCL Institute of Mental Health

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Pharmacology

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

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 | Neuroscience | Psychological Interventions | Trauma

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 | Neuroscience | Serious Mental Illness | Genomics


George Chapman

Honorary research fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

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

Ravi Das

Associate Professor, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Neuroscience | Psychological Interventions | Serious Mental IllnessSubstance Abuse

James Gilleen

Senior Lecturer, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

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

Lisa Marie Gruenwald

Clinical Trial Manager and PhD Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Psychological Interventions | Psychosocial | Physical Health

Zoë Haime

PhD Student, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Cognition | Psychological Interventions | Serious Mental Illness | Eating Disorders

Tobias Hauser

Principle Research Fellow, Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Other research interests include

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

Joseph Hayes

Principal Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Research areas:
- Life course epidemiology of bipolar disorder, risk factors, prodrome, treatments and long-term outcomes, including physical health problems
- Using routine data from primary and secondary care electronic health records and population cohorts to further the understanding of the epidemiology of severe mental illness
- Pharmacoepidemiology and physical health effects in severe mental illness
- Physical activity and mental health
- Ecological Momentary Assessment of mood
- Personalized treatments for severe mental illness
- Social determinants of severe mental health problems
- Drug re-purposing in psychiatry

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness Mood Disorders | Physical Health | Epidemiology


 

Karishma Jivraj

Lecturer, Institute of Education

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | 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

Karel Kieslich

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Neuroscience | Substance Abuse | Mood Disorders | Epidemiology

Glyn Lewis

Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry, Division of Psychiatry

I am interested in investigating the causes of psychiatric disorder, particularly depressive illness and psychosis. Causal factors that are potentially preventable could be especially useful but clues to aetiology also can improve our understanding of illness and help to devise treatments. I also carry out randomised controlled trials to evaluate treatments for depression in primary care. I aim to carry out research that has practical implications in improving clinical care of people with psychiatric disorder. I want to identify those advances in our neuroscientific understanding that could lead to practicable benefits for patients.

Other research interests include

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

Diana Liu

Research Associate, Division of Medicine

Other research interests include

Cancer

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 | Neuroscience | Substance Abuse

Rosalind McAlpine

PhD Student, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Serious Mental Illness | Psychosocial | Substance AbuseWellbeing

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 IllnessEpidemiology | Neuroscience | Children and Young People's Mental Health

David Osborn

Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Division of Psychiatry

David's main research interests are the interface between physical and mental health, psychiatric epidemiology and the provision of effective and safe interventions for people with severe mental illnesses including psychosis. He has published related work over the last 20 years in journals such as The British Medical Journal, British Journal of Psychiatry and Archives of General Psychiatry/JAMA Psychiatry.

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Epidemiology | Physical Health | Mood Disorders

Steven Papachristou

Lecturer in Psychology, Department of Psychology and Human Development

Other research interests include

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

Giulia Piazza

PhD Student, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Psychological Interventions | Cognition | Neuroscience | Psychosocial


Gary Price

Consultant Neuropsychiatrist , Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Dementia | Psychological Interventions | Neuroscience | Cognition

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 | Neuroscience | Cognition | Psychological Interventions

Jonathan Rogers

Wellcome Trust Clinical PhD Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Jonathan Rogers is a researcher in the UCL Division of Psychiatry specialising in neuropsychiatric disorders, and particularly catatonia. His current research involves investigating the neurobiology of catatonia using epidemiological, neuroimmunological and neuroimaging techniques. He is also interested in psychopharmacology and the psychiatry of COVID-19. 

Other research interests include

Serious Mental Illness | Epidemiology

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 DisordersNeuroscience Physical Health | Psychological Interventions 

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 | Neuroscience


Muhammad Waqar Ashraf Bhatti 

Clinical Psychologist, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

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

Vincent Valton

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

Other research interests include

Mood Disorders | Cognition | Neuroscience

Justin Christopher Yang

Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry

Other research interests include

Substance Abuse | Serious Mental Illness | Mood Disorders | Epidemiology