Emily Holmes, PhD DClinPsych

Mental Health Science: From a Curiosity About the "Imaginary World" to Applications in the "Real World"

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Presenter Biography: 

Holmes received her degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, UK. She is also a clinician and completed a clinical psychology training doctorate at Royal Holloway University of London, and a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience in Cambridge. She became Professor in 2010 at the University of Oxford. Holmes is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She is the recipient of several international awards, including from the American Psychological Association and the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Holmes serves on the Board of Trustees of the research charity "MQ; transforming mental health”. 

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Holmes’ work as a clinical psychologist has fuelled her research questions. She is interested in psychological treatment innovation in mental health – both in creating new techniques and reaching more people. Under the wider umbrella of mental health science, her approach brings together psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, maths and more. Holmes’ research has demonstrated that mental imagery has a more powerful impact on emotion than its verbal counterpart. Her group is particularly interested in understanding and reducing intrusive memories (‘flashbacks’) after traumatic events, whether a severe car accident, traumatic childbirth, war, or events during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end her research team in Uppsala are creating a hub studying intrusive memories internationally, with current collaborations including UK, Iceland, Columbia and Australia. 

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Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the idea of mental health science

• Share a curiosity about mental imagery

• Explore how we might move from the lab to real world (and back again)

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Catherine Harmer, DPhil, MA, DipLATHE - University of Oxford

“Using Cognitive Neuroscience to Improve Future Treatment of Depression and Anxiety

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Presenter Biography:

Dr. Harmer is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. She is an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist with an innovative program of translational research that examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying treatment effects in psychiatry. As Director of the Psychopharmacology and Emotional Research Lab (PERL), she employs a range of methodologies, including neuropsychological testing, transcranical magnetic stimulation and functional neuroimaging with fMRI and PET in healthy and clinical populations. Her program of research is an excellent example of how research from basic cognitive neuroscience can be rapidly translated to real-world clinical interventions. More information about her exciting research, as well as links to her publications, can be found here: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/team/catherine-harmer

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Leanne Williams, Ph.D. - Stanford University

“Neuroscience-Informed Precision Psychiatry​"

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Despite tremendous advances in characterizing human brain circuits that govern emotional and cognitive functions that are impaired in depression and anxiety, we lack a circuit-based taxonomy for depression and anxiety that captures transdiagnostic heterogeneity and informs clinical decision making. In this webinar I present on the development and testing of a system for quantifying six brain circuits reproducibly and at the individual patient level. The system is developed in a primary sample and tested on generalizability samples of depression and anxiety (n=250). Results from this system show that disconnections within both task-free and task-evoked circuits relate to specific symptom and behavioral phenotypes. Circuit dysfunction scores also predict response to antidepressant and behavioral intervention treatments in an independent sample. This system offers one foundation for deploying standardized circuit assessments across research groups, trials and clinics to advance more precise classifications and treatment targets for psychiatry.

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Learning Objectives:

1. To become familiar with large-scale human neural circuits implicated in depression and anxiety

2. To learn about an approach to identifying types of depression and anxiety based on neural circuit dysfunction

3. To gain insights into how neural circuit types of depression can be used to optimize treatments

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Dr. Judy Illes, University of British Columbia, Canada

"Neuroethics for the Neurosciences"

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Presenter Biography:

Dr. Illes is Professor of Neurology and Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics at UBC. She is Director of Neuroethics Canada, and faculty in the Centre for Brain Health and at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. She received her PhD in Hearing and Speech Sciences, and in Neuropsychology at Stanford University, and became one of the pioneers of the field of neuroethics formally established in early 2000. Dr. Illes’ research, teaching and outreach initiatives are devoted to ethical, legal, social and policy challenges at the intersection of the brain sciences and biomedical ethics. She has made groundbreaking contributions to neuroethical thinking for neuroscience discovery and clinical translation specifically in the areas of neuroimaging, and neuromodulation across the lifespan, more broadly to entrepreneurship and the commercialization of health care. Dr. Illes is co-Lead of the Canadian Brain Research Strategy. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and appointed to the Order of Canada in December 2017, the highest award for citizens in her country.

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Basic neuroscientific research on the mechanisms underlying cognitive, affective, and social processes have been slow in penetrating real-world psychology/psychiatry clinics. This is a missed opportunity for maximizing and advancing our understanding of core patterns of psychopathology and treatment response in neuropsychiatric disorders. This series will bring together members from the neuroscience, medical, and psychiatry/psychology communities to translate basic science findings into real-world clinical practice. 

 

Learning Objectives:

• To evaluate promising neuroscientific findings in the areas of emotion, socioemotional learning and development, cognition, and therapeutic change that have significant potential to improve prevention and intervention efforts for mental illness.

• To recognize common barriers to the translation and adoption of basic science in real-world clinical practice.  

• To articulate the benefits of integrating neuroscientific research in clinical practice in terms of prevention, assessment, and treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders.

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