PsySTAR Programme (Psychiatry: Scottish Training in Academic Research Programme)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Psychiatry
Abstract
Psychiatry took itself off from the rest of medicine about 100 years ago and the management of people with psychiatric disorders has suffered as a consequence. Advances in psychiatry have not kept pace with increasingly rapid developments in diagnostics and therapeutics, even in a discipline like neurology which also deals with the complexity of the brain. Neuroscience, the science of the brain, has now advanced to the point where we can model aspects of psychiatric disorders in cells, animals and even computers and thereby develop new treatments to improve the lot of psychiatric patients. Similarly, there are several, novel behavioural and psychosocial interventions which are ripe for application in the treatment and prevention of mental health problems.
The time has therefore come to bring psychiatry and especially the training of academic psychiatrists back into the rest of medicine, including the behavioural and public health sciences, to realise the opportunities presented by biomedicine and cognitive neuroscience. To do so however, the discipline as a whole needs to move away from the isolation of departments of psychiatry and towards truly interdisciplinary research. In particular, the next generation of academic psychiatrists need to be familiar with cutting edge neurobiological and psychosocial research techniques which can develop new treatments and the clinical trial methods to test whether they work. Our PsySTAR trainees will receive concentrated teaching in each of these before selecting a PhD with one or more world leading scientists, with careful mentoring and guiding so that they choose the right PhD for them. The PhD will be done with one or more world leading scientists, with mentoring from an internationally renowned academic psychiatrist. PsySTAR trainees will therefore be placed in labs where many other scientists and doctors from many specialties are working together. This will have the added value of critical mass and peer-to-peer support, and reinforce the integration of research and clinical training.
The obvious question, however, is why should this training be based in Scotland? The answer is that we offer a training environment with world class expertise in the relevant fields; that we have already moved away from departments of psychiatry and towards interdisciplinary research centres and collaborative groupings; and that we already have several such training schemes (for translational medicine, pharmacology, pathology, brain imaging and the basic sciences) as well as mature NHS, academic and industry partnerships in our uniquely co-operative environment. It is worth noting that there are currently at least 15 clinical academics in England and Wales who undertook basic and/or higher psychiatry training in one or more sites in Scotland and now occupy senior positions across, for example, the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff, and the Institute of Psychiatry, including indeed many of the Professors of Psychiatry in Oxford. We have therefore a very well established track record of training to the benefit of British psychiatry and indeed medical research as a whole.
The time has therefore come to bring psychiatry and especially the training of academic psychiatrists back into the rest of medicine, including the behavioural and public health sciences, to realise the opportunities presented by biomedicine and cognitive neuroscience. To do so however, the discipline as a whole needs to move away from the isolation of departments of psychiatry and towards truly interdisciplinary research. In particular, the next generation of academic psychiatrists need to be familiar with cutting edge neurobiological and psychosocial research techniques which can develop new treatments and the clinical trial methods to test whether they work. Our PsySTAR trainees will receive concentrated teaching in each of these before selecting a PhD with one or more world leading scientists, with careful mentoring and guiding so that they choose the right PhD for them. The PhD will be done with one or more world leading scientists, with mentoring from an internationally renowned academic psychiatrist. PsySTAR trainees will therefore be placed in labs where many other scientists and doctors from many specialties are working together. This will have the added value of critical mass and peer-to-peer support, and reinforce the integration of research and clinical training.
The obvious question, however, is why should this training be based in Scotland? The answer is that we offer a training environment with world class expertise in the relevant fields; that we have already moved away from departments of psychiatry and towards interdisciplinary research centres and collaborative groupings; and that we already have several such training schemes (for translational medicine, pharmacology, pathology, brain imaging and the basic sciences) as well as mature NHS, academic and industry partnerships in our uniquely co-operative environment. It is worth noting that there are currently at least 15 clinical academics in England and Wales who undertook basic and/or higher psychiatry training in one or more sites in Scotland and now occupy senior positions across, for example, the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff, and the Institute of Psychiatry, including indeed many of the Professors of Psychiatry in Oxford. We have therefore a very well established track record of training to the benefit of British psychiatry and indeed medical research as a whole.
Technical Summary
British academic psychiatry needs a new approach. Unparalleled advances in the rest of medicine have supplied research tools that have vast untapped potential to improve the management of psychiatric disorders. The overarching goal of the PsySTAR PhD fellowship programme is to get the next generation of academic psychiatrists to engage with the relevant aspects of basic science and medicine, and thus foster a cadre of psychiatric researchers focused on developing innovative treatments through cutting edge approaches in stem cell biology, epigenetics, developmental programming, animal and computational models, and novel behavioural and psychosocial interventions for treatment and prevention.
We propose an innovative mental health clinical research training PhD programme based on the outstanding basic-to-clinical translational research environment and the existing excellence in clinical training in Scotland. PsySTAR brings together leading researchers and centres of excellence in psychiatric genetics, behavioural and clinical neuroscience, brain imaging, epidemiology, biomedicine, the quantitative sciences, social and public health sciences and clinical trial methodology. Trainees will receive concentrated teaching in each of these, with careful mentoring and guidance towards PhD supervisor and project selection, integrated into their first year of specialist training. The PhD will be taken with one or more scientists, often in different locations, with mentoring from an academic psychiatrist, all from units rated world leading/internationally excellent in RAE2008. We will manage the cohort, alongside those in similar clinical PhD schemes, to maximise the added value of critical mass and peer support.
We have in Scotland many more trainees applying to psychiatry training schemes than in the rest of the UK, a proven track record of academic training, a well established collaborative research infrastructure and mature NHS and industrypartnerships.
We propose an innovative mental health clinical research training PhD programme based on the outstanding basic-to-clinical translational research environment and the existing excellence in clinical training in Scotland. PsySTAR brings together leading researchers and centres of excellence in psychiatric genetics, behavioural and clinical neuroscience, brain imaging, epidemiology, biomedicine, the quantitative sciences, social and public health sciences and clinical trial methodology. Trainees will receive concentrated teaching in each of these, with careful mentoring and guidance towards PhD supervisor and project selection, integrated into their first year of specialist training. The PhD will be taken with one or more scientists, often in different locations, with mentoring from an academic psychiatrist, all from units rated world leading/internationally excellent in RAE2008. We will manage the cohort, alongside those in similar clinical PhD schemes, to maximise the added value of critical mass and peer support.
We have in Scotland many more trainees applying to psychiatry training schemes than in the rest of the UK, a proven track record of academic training, a well established collaborative research infrastructure and mature NHS and industrypartnerships.
Planned Impact
Clinical psychiatrists and indeed mental health workers as a whole in the UK and beyond will also benefit from the immediate work of the PsySTAR trainees themselves and over the course of the next generation both in terms of the research they do and the trainees they go on to supervise. As scientific knowledge increases and practical applications are seen to benefit patients, the field as a whole will benefit from renewed optimism, with an increased standing amongst the rest of medicine and in society generally, and a greater interest amongst young doctors in clinical and research training in psychiatry.
The broad range of relevant research skills available to PsySTAR trainees, and our focus on translational neuroscience in its broadest sense - from both mouse to man and from bench to bedside - will have a number of wider benefits. As new treatments are developed and established, the UK's expertise in translational neuroscience will be reinforced, patients and their relatives and carers will benefit from novel therapeutic approaches, industry will have the opportunity to exploit these and related initiatives for commercial gain, mental health policy leaders will benefit from an increased range of evidence based interventions, educational and cultural organisations will have renewed opportunities for the dissemination of scientific information of wide interest to the public, and society as a whole should benefit from the direct and indirect impact upon the nations mental health.
To make the most of these opportunities, PsySTAR will have a vigorous public engagement and public lecture programme, as do all the participating PsySTAR universities and research centres. Most support Café Scientifique (http://cafescientifique.org), as shall we. Opportunities also arise for public engagement through Edinburgh's International Science Festival (www.sciencefestival.co.uk), and from this year through a 'Neuroscience stream' at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Many of the investigators within PsySTAR work regularly with the Science Media Centre (www.sciencemediacentre.org/) in London, engaging with mainstream media to demystify science and transmit a clear message about societal benefits. Our programme will particularly emphasise the benefits to society of a modern forward looking science based psychiatry training programme that will deliver high quality academics and in turn novel therapies and therapeutics. Several PsySTAR scientists are actively engaged with the Scottish Parliament in promoting disease-specific and broader health-related issues to prioritisation in the public portfolio, such as rational antidepressant prescribing targets and the promotion of evidence-based health policy.
We shall also participate enthusiastically in highly relevant initiatives in life sciences including:
1. Beltane 'Beacon for Public Engagement' in Scotland (www.rcuk.ac.uk/sis/beacons.htm), which is supported by the UK Funding Councils, together with the Wellcome Trust, to encourage citizen participation and understanding of research relevant to public policy, bringing together researchers in medicine and the sciences and engineering with those in social sciences, arts and humanities to ensure breakthroughs in technology, medicines and treatments are described in a human context that relates to health and the environment we live in.
2. ESRC Innogen Centre (www.innogen.ac.uk), which merges interdisciplinary teams of social, natural and medical scientists to understand genomics and life science innovation and its better governance - in industry and research, globally and in everyday life, focusing on how rapid changes in life science can address global health needs. Over the next 5 years ESRC will invest a further £5million to address new research areas: including tissue engineering, systems/synthetic biology, translational medicine and health, with the aim that society maintains its understanding and control of new science.
The broad range of relevant research skills available to PsySTAR trainees, and our focus on translational neuroscience in its broadest sense - from both mouse to man and from bench to bedside - will have a number of wider benefits. As new treatments are developed and established, the UK's expertise in translational neuroscience will be reinforced, patients and their relatives and carers will benefit from novel therapeutic approaches, industry will have the opportunity to exploit these and related initiatives for commercial gain, mental health policy leaders will benefit from an increased range of evidence based interventions, educational and cultural organisations will have renewed opportunities for the dissemination of scientific information of wide interest to the public, and society as a whole should benefit from the direct and indirect impact upon the nations mental health.
To make the most of these opportunities, PsySTAR will have a vigorous public engagement and public lecture programme, as do all the participating PsySTAR universities and research centres. Most support Café Scientifique (http://cafescientifique.org), as shall we. Opportunities also arise for public engagement through Edinburgh's International Science Festival (www.sciencefestival.co.uk), and from this year through a 'Neuroscience stream' at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Many of the investigators within PsySTAR work regularly with the Science Media Centre (www.sciencemediacentre.org/) in London, engaging with mainstream media to demystify science and transmit a clear message about societal benefits. Our programme will particularly emphasise the benefits to society of a modern forward looking science based psychiatry training programme that will deliver high quality academics and in turn novel therapies and therapeutics. Several PsySTAR scientists are actively engaged with the Scottish Parliament in promoting disease-specific and broader health-related issues to prioritisation in the public portfolio, such as rational antidepressant prescribing targets and the promotion of evidence-based health policy.
We shall also participate enthusiastically in highly relevant initiatives in life sciences including:
1. Beltane 'Beacon for Public Engagement' in Scotland (www.rcuk.ac.uk/sis/beacons.htm), which is supported by the UK Funding Councils, together with the Wellcome Trust, to encourage citizen participation and understanding of research relevant to public policy, bringing together researchers in medicine and the sciences and engineering with those in social sciences, arts and humanities to ensure breakthroughs in technology, medicines and treatments are described in a human context that relates to health and the environment we live in.
2. ESRC Innogen Centre (www.innogen.ac.uk), which merges interdisciplinary teams of social, natural and medical scientists to understand genomics and life science innovation and its better governance - in industry and research, globally and in everyday life, focusing on how rapid changes in life science can address global health needs. Over the next 5 years ESRC will invest a further £5million to address new research areas: including tissue engineering, systems/synthetic biology, translational medicine and health, with the aim that society maintains its understanding and control of new science.
Organisations
Publications
Topiwala H
(2018)
Lifestyle and neurodegeneration in midlife as expressed on functional magnetic resonance imaging: A systematic review.
in Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.)
Mullins N
(2022)
Dissecting the Shared Genetic Architecture of Suicide Attempt, Psychiatric Disorders, and Known Risk Factors
in Biological Psychiatry
Warrilow A
(2018)
Autoimmune disorders in child psychiatry: keeping up with the field
in BJPsych Advances
Mizen L
(2020)
Demystifying neuroscience laboratory techniques used to investigate single-gene disorders
in BJPsych Advances
Ellis N
(2019)
Venous thromboembolism risk in psychiatric in-patients: a multicentre cross-sectional study.
in BJPsych bulletin
Dunican DS
(2020)
Bivalent promoter hypermethylation in cancer is linked to the H327me3/H3K4me3 ratio in embryonic stem cells.
in BMC biology
Hernández B
(2021)
Comparisons of disease cluster patterns, prevalence and health factors in the USA, Canada, England and Ireland.
in BMC public health
Stirland LE
(2020)
Measuring multimorbidity beyond counting diseases: systematic review of community and population studies and guide to index choice.
in BMJ (Clinical research ed.)
Stirland Lucy E.
(2020)
Measuring multimorbidity beyond counting diseases: systematic review of community and population studies and guide to index choice
in BMJ-BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
Badenoch JB
(2022)
Persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms after COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
in Brain communications
Rogers JP
(2022)
Neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19 after vaccination: A gathering storm?
in Brain, behavior, and immunity
Zhang H
(2021)
Benchmarking network-based gene prioritization methods for cerebral small vessel disease.
in Briefings in bioinformatics
Glasmacher SA
(2019)
Incidental Findings Identified on Head MRI for Investigation of Cognitive Impairment: A Retrospective Review.
in Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders
Ishihara M
(2019)
Shortening self-report mental health symptom measures through optimal test assembly methods: Development and validation of the Patient Health Questionnaire-Depression-4.
in Depression and anxiety
Badenoch JB
(2022)
Neurological and psychiatric presentations associated with human monkeypox virus infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
in EClinicalMedicine
Madden R
(2020)
Birth weight associations with DNA methylation differences in an adult population
in Epigenetics
Mullin DS
(2023)
Socioeconomic status as a risk factor for motoric cognitive risk syndrome in a community-dwelling population: A longitudinal observational study.
in European journal of neurology
Glasmacher S
(2021)
Prevalence of multimorbidity and its impact on survival in people with motor neuron disease
in European Journal of Neurology
Stirland LE
(2023)
Authenticity and brain health: a values-based perspective and cultural education approach.
in Frontiers in neurology
Watermeyer T
(2021)
Cognitive Dispersion Predicts Grip Strength Trajectories in Men but not Women in a Sample of the Oldest Old Without Dementia.
in Innovation in aging
Mullin DS
(2022)
Prevalence and predictors of Motoric Cognitive Risk syndrome in a community-dwelling older Scottish population: A longitudinal observational study.
in International journal of geriatric psychiatry
Stirland LE
(2018)
Passive smoking as a risk factor for dementia and cognitive impairment: systematic review of observational studies.
in International psychogeriatrics
Andreacchi A
(2023)
An Exploration of Methods to Resolve Inconsistent Self-Reporting of Chronic Conditions and Impact on Multimorbidity in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
in Journal of Aging and Health
Stirland LE
(2019)
Associations Between Multimorbidity and Cerebrospinal Fluid Amyloid: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia (EPAD) V500.0 Cohort.
in Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD
Wright D
(2023)
Profiling Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Traits in Children with SYNGAP1-Related Intellectual Disability.
in Journal of autism and developmental disorders
Levis B
(2020)
Patient Health Questionnaire-9 scores do not accurately estimate depression prevalence: individual participant data meta-analysis.
in Journal of clinical epidemiology
Hafferty JD
(2018)
Self-reported medication use validated through record linkage to national prescribing data.
in Journal of clinical epidemiology
Queirazza F
(2023)
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Signatures of Pavlovian and Instrumental Valuation Systems during a Modified Orthogonalized Go/No-go Task
in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Stirland LE
(2020)
Associations between midlife chronic conditions and medication use with anxiety and depression: A cross-sectional analysis of the PREVENT Dementia study.
in Journal of comorbidity
Rooney AG
(2014)
Depression in glioma: a primer for clinicians and researchers.
in Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
Rogers JP
(2021)
Neurology and neuropsychiatry of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the early literature reveals frequent CNS manifestations and key emerging narratives.
in Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
Hafferty JD
(2019)
Pharmaco-epidemiology of antidepressant exposure in a UK cohort record-linkage study.
in Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
Wu Y
(2020)
Probability of major depression diagnostic classification based on the SCID, CIDI and MINI diagnostic interviews controlling for Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale - Depression subscale scores: An individual participant data meta-analysis of 73 primary studies.
in Journal of psychosomatic research
Brehaut E
(2020)
Depression prevalence using the HADS-D compared to SCID major depression classification: An individual participant data meta-analysis.
in Journal of psychosomatic research
Glasmacher SA
(2020)
Understanding the risk of incidental findings: A qualitative study of people with cognitive symptoms.
in Journal of the neurological sciences
Conti I
(2021)
COVID-19 and fatigue: Where do we go from here? Response to Ortelli et al.
in Journal of the Neurological Sciences
Van Dongen J
(2021)
DNA methylation signatures of aggression and closely related constructs: A meta-analysis of epigenome-wide studies across the lifespan
in Molecular Psychiatry
Russ TC
(2019)
How data science can advance mental health research.
in Nature human behaviour
Howard DM
(2019)
Genome-wide meta-analysis of depression identifies 102 independent variants and highlights the importance of the prefrontal brain regions.
in Nature neuroscience
Rooney AG
(2019)
Cluster clarity? Distinct symptom clusters predict impaired quality of life.
in Neuro-oncology
Van Der Meer P
(2023)
Depression and anxiety in glioma patients
in Neuro-Oncology Practice
Zwinkels H
(2021)
Identification of characteristics that determine behavioral and personality changes in adult glioma patients
in Neuro-Oncology Practice
Pace A
(2020)
Determining medical decision-making capacity in brain tumor patients: why and how?
in Neuro-oncology practice
Rooney AG
(2023)
Lifestyle coaching is feasible in fatigued brain tumor patients: A phase I/feasibility, multi-center, mixed-methods randomized controlled trial.
in Neuro-oncology practice
Boele FW
(2015)
Psychiatric symptoms in glioma patients: from diagnosis to management.
in Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment
Licht T
(2016)
VEGF preconditioning leads to stem cell remodeling and attenuates age-related decay of adult hippocampal neurogenesis.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Description | NHS Education for Scotland/Chief Scientist Office Postdoctoral Clinical Lectureship PCL/20/0 |
Amount | £250,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Chief Scientist Office |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2020 |
End | 08/2022 |
Description | SIM fellowship to Dr Filippo Querazza |
Amount | £150,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2019 |
End | 08/2021 |
Description | Sim Fellowship for Dr Alasdair Rooney |
Amount | £200,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2018 |
End | 08/2020 |
Description | Visits to UK psychiatry centres to promote PsySTAR |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Several visits (to e.g. Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Oxford) to audiences of typically 20-40 postgraduate psychiatry trainees and academic colleagues, to promote PsySTAR. These have stimulated discussions about the future of academic psychiatry, similar schemes and great enthusiasm for the PsySTAR approach. These promotional visits have stimulated interest in PsySTAR and similar initiatives, and led to increased numbers of applications from the places visited. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013,2014 |