Barbara Sahakian, United Kingdom
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 14.00 – 14.45 h
Psychopharmacology and Cognition
Barbara J Sahakian is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry, and the Medical Research Council?/?Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. She is also a Clinical Psychologist.
She has an international reputation in the fields of cognitive psychopharmacology, neuroethics, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry and neuroimaging. She is co-inventor of the CANTAB computerised neuropsychological tests, which are in use world-wide. She is probably best known for her research work on cognition and depression, cognitive enhancement using pharmacological treatments, neuroethics and early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Indeed, she has over 350 publications covering these topics in scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Archives of General Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, the Journal of Neuroscience, Brain, Psychopharmacology and Psychological Medicine. The ISI Web of Science database credits her with a Hirsch (h) Index of 79. Her current programme of research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council, investigates the neurochemical modulation of impulsive and compulsive behaviour in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as unipolar and bipolar depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This topic was the focus of her recent papers published in Science, (Chamberlain et al 2006, Chamberlain et al 2008, Chamberlain et al, 2010).
Professor Sahakian was one of the first researchers to suggest that attentional dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease could be ameliorated using pharmacotherapy, such as cholinesterase inhibitors. In addition, she was early to highlight the cognitive changes in unipolar and bipolar depression, as well as their significance for functional outcome. In 2003, she was selected to lecture on this topic for the Teaching Day at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). Most recently, she has introduced the importance of the concept of cognitive reserve to the field of neuropsychiatry (Psychological Medicine, 2006, 36, 1053-1064).
In recognition of her contribution to cognitive neuroscience, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004 and in 2005 she was awarded the Donders Chair in Psychopharmacology at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). In 2008 she gave the Deakin Innovation Lectures in Melbourne, Australia and she was the first woman to give a plenary lecture at ECNP (Barcelona). From 2009 to 2010, she has taken up the Distinguished International Scholars Award at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). In 2010 she was appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health (http://grandchallengesgmh.nimh.nih.gov/). She is on the Steering Group for the Royal Society Brain Waves Project which is currently launching a series of reports on developments in neuroscience and their implications for society and policy (http://royalsociety.org/brainwaves/). She has recently been appointed to the Council of CINP and is President-Elect of the British Association for Psychopharmacology. She was honoured with the Senior Investigator Award from ICGP (2010). In 2011 she gave the Royal Society of Medicine’s Henry Barnes Lecture on cosmetic enhancement and the plenary lecture at the Scandanavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting. Later on in the year she will be giving the BBR?/?Elsevier Prize Lecture at the EBBS meeting in Seville, Spain as well as the Otto Wolf Lecture at the UCL Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital.
She has keen interests in women in neuroscience, neuroethics, engagement of the public in science and neuroscience and mental health policy. From November 2005 she began a three-year appointment to the Committee of Women in Neuroscience for the Society for Neuroscience (SFN, USA). In 2010 she gave the Women in Neuroscience Luncheon Lecture at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting (http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=womeninneuroscience_luncheon). In 2006 she began her appointment on the Medical Research Council (MRC) Neurosciences and Mental Health Board and in 2008 she was appointed to the MRC Expert Group for Strategy on Mental Health. She was a founder member and was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Neuroethics Society and is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience. She has co-edited of The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (2011). She frequently engages with the public on areas of neuroscience and neuroethics, and has given the Nature Debate (2008) and the Royal Society President’s Lecture (2009). She has an Academic Attachment to the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford.
In 2006 she was appointed as a member of the Science Co-ordination Team for the Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing (UK Office of Science, Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills). (www.foresight.gov.uk). This project was launched in October 2008 (Beddington et al 2008 Nature). More recently, she has contributed to the MRC Review of Mental Health Research Report of the Strategic Review Group 2010 (Sahakian et al, 2010, The Lancet).
In 2011 she was appointed a member of the Steering Committee for the Joint Academies project on human enhancement in the workplace (Joint Academies: The Academy of Medical Sciences, British Academy, The Royal Academy of Engineering, The Royal Society)
Professor Sahakian has also trained over 20 PhD students in the field of cognitive neuroscience, many now with international reputations in their own right (e.g. Adrian M Owen, Rebecca Elliott, Andrew D. Lawrence, Adam Aron) and several prize winners (e.g. Jennifer Coull, Mitul Mehta, Danielle Turner, Samuel Chamberlain). Since 2004 she has been writing and training PhD students in the field of neuroethics. One of her students, Danielle Turner, who completed her PhD on the psychopharmacology of cognitive enhancement in 2005, received an award from the British Psychological Society and was recently selected as one of the top five young UK researchers. Her PhD student, Karen Ersche, was recently appointed Betty Behrens Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge.
Professor Sahakian is a Fellow of Clare Hall and Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College.