Our research is focused on improving diagnosis and prevention and finding new treatments for reproductive mental illnesses across three themes: the menstrual cycle, childbirth and menopause.
Our flagship research programme, GASSP, is funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant and is the first molecular genetic study of psychiatric sensitivity to sex hormone change. GASSP studies how our genes can help identify women and AFAB people who are at risk of psychiatric disorders in relation to changes in their sex hormones.
Genes are only part of the complex mechanisms that underpin psychiatric disorders. Therefore, we are interested in their role in relation to other environmental factors.
The study of reproductive health in general and women’s mental health especially cannot overlook gender bias and the fact that we live in a very unequal society. For these reasons we are also seeking to disentangle what is nature and what is nurture when it comes to clinical differences in severe mental illness.
Most recently we have collaborated with Bipolar UK on a study design by people with lived experience on hypersexuality during episodes of mania and bipolar depression. Hypersexuality is an often-overlooked symptom of mania that may have a devastating impact on sufferers, especially women.
Reproductive Mental Health