When you first think of taxonomy, you might consider biology lessons and branches of the evolutionary tree: a hierarchy from a seaweed to a rose, 18th century botanical drawings, colorful wings of different species of butterflies filed away in museum cabinets. Psychiatry is unlikely to come to your mind, yet…
Not surprisingly the first time I showed any interest in procrastination as a topic was somewhere in the middle of my PhD (Coincidence? I don’t think so). I found back then a review article on procrastination, but like the proper procrastination pro that I am, I never actually got around…
It can often feel as if the weather dictates our moods. London has begun to come alive in the spring weather as people head outside to enjoy the warmth and the light. Yet can the sun truly make us feel happier? To answer this question, researchers have investigated whether sunlight is connected with…
An ever-expanding methodological toolbox is one of the privileges of 21st century science. For most of us, the pace of Moore’s law-driven technological advancement is now so familiar as to be almost taken for granted. However, the mere availability of technologically-advanced new methods is not a guaranteed solution to any…
When it first emerged just over a decade ago, D-cycloserine (DCS) enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for anxiety was hailed as one of the best examples of translational research in psychiatry. But does this apparent wonder drug really enhance the effects of exposure-based CBT? A recently published meta-analysis attempts to…
The relationship between the body and the mind is probably one of the most elusive aspects of medicine. Although topics such as placebo effect and medically unexplained symptoms capture our imagination, it is the co-occurrence of common physical and mental health problems that impacts the most on patients’ well-being and…
The American Journal of Medical Genetics has dedicated its March issue to the study of anxiety, including a contribution from our own lab! Here, I summarise some of the exciting developments it describes.
Thalia’s recent blog post highlighted the devastating fact that suicide is now the leading cause of death of young people (ages 20-34) in England and Wales. Moreover, the issue of the gender difference in suicide rates was raised. Thalia’s post noted that “whilst women are much more likely to be…
In May this year I’ll be running my first marathon. Training is gruelling and involves running upwards of 40km a week, my legs ache for a significant amount of the time, and I’ve had to turn down Sunday brunch on more than one occasion – my excuse being “…but my…
Microbiome research has not yet reshaped our conceptions of mental health etiology and treatment (see my previous article), but it should be causing havoc in the social sciences – particularly for anthropologists, who have long sought to understand cross-cultural conceptions of the ‘individual’ and ‘relatedness’.
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