Angharad De Cates

I am a clinical DPhil student funded by the Wellcome Trust and supervised by Professor Catherine Harmer and Professor Philip Cowen.

My research interests include mood disorders and self-harm, neurocognition and psychopharmacology.

Current pharmacological treatments for depression are often poorly tolerated with unacceptable side effects, and may be ineffective at treating low mood for certain individuals. For my DPhil, I plan to validate in humans the use of potential new antidepressant agents which act via specific serotonergic receptors using an experimental model process. To do this, we will use neurocognitive markers of brain function (such as emotional processing, and reward), which have been measured using behavioural tasks and brain imaging. Preliminary work indicates that these novel agents may work more quickly, may work for those who have not had a response with previous antidepressants, and may have fewer side effects. 

I am also a Specialty Registrar in General Adult Psychiatry, and have membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.