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Contact information


amy.gillespie@psych.ox.ac.uk


+44 (0)1865 618324


OSF


ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4640-699X


Neurosciences Building, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital


she/her

Amy Gillespie

BSc, MSc, PhD

Senior Post-doctoral Researcher and BRC Project Manager

I am a senior post-doctoral researcher working within the Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab (PERL), led by Catherine Harmer, and I also project manage the Depression Therapeutics theme of the Oxford Health BRC. I have been a post-doc in the department since October 2017.

I am broadly interested in research which helps us understand the neurocognitive mechanisms of interventions for psychiatric problems.

Currently my primary area is pharmacological treatments for depression and their effects on emotional and social cognition. I am working on a number of experimental medicine studies investigating 5-HT4 agonists, MAO inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, statins, ketamine, and social/behavioural interventions, as well as a study looking at the impact of hormonal cycle on emotional cognition.

My doctoral work (KCL, 2014-17) investigated pharmacological treatments in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Specifically, I worked on investigating a) whether their were categorical differences between participants with treatment-resistant and treatment-responsive schizophrenia and b) the effects of clozapine on DNA methylation (an epigenetic process) in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. 

My growing priorities are: 

  • improving and standardising our methodologies - from the development and assessment of reliable, robust cognitive tasks to the use of reproducible and rigorous analysis pipelines (primarily working in R)
  • expanding our experimental medicine studies into groups often neglected by mechanistic work (e.g. treatment-resistant patients, patients with cognitive impairment, patients with co-morbidities, marginalised groups)
  • improving the inclusivity of our experimental medicine studies
  • involving people with lived experience of depression in our research as collaborators

I am lead for PPI and EDI within the Depression Therapeutics theme, run the Depression Therapeutics PPI group, and I co-chair the departmental Race Equality Working Group.

I am always very happy to discuss opportunities for collaboration, sharing expertise and advice, and providing mentorship.