Achievements so far include:

• PANDA - our large placebo-controlled trial of the SSRI antidepressant sertraline, found that this was more effective at reducing anxiety symptoms than depressive symptoms early on in treatment and this has implications for understanding  mechanism of action and targeting of patients with predominant anxiety symptoms with SSRIs (Lewis G et al Lancet Psychiatry 2019).
• Colleagues within Computational Psychiatry:
  • have found that a simple behavioural task and simple EEG measure both have predictive power in the prediction of which patients will show depressive relapse after discontinuation of antidepressant medication (Berwian IM et al JAMA Psychiatry 2020)
  • Back-translated sign-tracking, a risk phenotype for addictive traits in rodents into humans and used fMRI and computational modelling to establish the underlying neurobiology. This work links individual difference in neurobiology to differences in learning. It provides a mechanistic account of how low-level mechanisms may relate to addiction risk (Schad et al., 2020 Nat. Hum. Behaviour).

Theme members led the Mental Health component of the Genomics England Pharmacogenetic Service that rolled out across the whole NHS in 2020. In anticipation of this, we have established a Pharmacogenetic Testing Service within Camden and Islington Trust for treatment-resistant patients with psychosis and depression and those who have experienced treatment-limiting adverse drug reactions.