Current projects
BID FOR BETTER: Menopause Matters: A better health service for women (2022-2023)
This project is conducted in collaboration with the Royal Surrey County Hospital. We will work on increasing patient awareness and understanding of the menopause transition, and how/where they are able seek additional health support. We will also develop improved crosstalk between gynaecologists and nutritionists/dieticians at Royal Surrey to ensure patients receive high-quality, holistic support tailored to them to reduce their menopause symptoms, with focus on gut health at menopause and how improving diet and nutrition could alleviate symptoms not relieved by hormone replacement therapy. This project will also involve focus group work and any interested women are invited to get in touch for further information.
Project Fearless: Effect of Prebiotics on Emotional Well-being (2020-2023)
This 3-year project consists of three human intervention studies that will study the prebiotic effect of galacto-oligosaccharides on emotion regulation abilities at the behavioural and brain level in children, adolescents and young adults, complemented by gut microbiome profiling. This project is conducted in collaboration with our industrial partner FrieslandCampina Ingredients, The Netherlands and the BUG group Surrey. For further background reading please see here, or check out the clinical trials protocol for study 1 (NCT03835468).
The effect of Long-Term Khat use on Cognitive and Brain Function (2019-2023)
This project, which is supported by a PhD scholarship from the Society for the Study of Addiction to Ayan Ahmed, investigates the long-term impact of khat use on neurocognitive processes. Specifically, we seek to address this current gap in knowledge by using neuroimaging and behavioural approaches that will provide an evaluation of the relationship between khat use and components of executive functioning.
Completed projects
At-Home study OF the Effects of Prebiotic Food Supplements oN Emotional Well-being in Children aged 11-14 years (2021)
For this project, we invite children and young people aged 11-14 years and their parents to participate in an at-home study that investigated the effects of prebiotics on emotion regulation abilities and well-being. Participants will receive a 1-month supply of prebiotic food supplements to take at home, as well as a link to an online platform to complete a few questionnaires and computer tasks. Please use the contact form to get in touch with us. This project is conducted in collaboration with our industrial partner FrieslandCampina Ingredients, The Netherlands and the BUG group Surrey.
Better GUT MiCROBIOME FUNCTION (2020)
This consultation (funded by the Wellcome Trust) investigates the role of ‘better gut microbiome function’ in adolescent anxiety, together with Dr Jennifer Lau, KCL, and Prof Glenn Gibson, University of Reading. This project will focus on finding new, active ingredients that help improve anxiety in adolescents and young people and contribute to the development of a super-discipline of mental health science.
EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE in school transitions (2018-2020)
This corner-stone project looks at how individual differences in emotional competence affect mental health and well-being during the transition from primary to secondary school. After testing 50 girls in the final months of primary school, we are now following up with each girl to obtain measures of well-being after the school transition. This project is funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences/Wellcome Trust.
Training the developing emotion-regulation network using neurofeedback
This project comprised 3 studies that used real-time functional connectivity neurofeedback (NF) to train anxious girls in the self-regulation of brain regions supporting emotion regulation, such as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. In short, our results across three data sets showed that adolescent girls can learn to self-regulate key emotion regulation brain networks, and, critically, these changes at the brain level are reflected in changes at the behavioural level. Further reading, please see preprint here, and our preclinical trials registration (NCT02463136). More on NF...
Collaborators:
Braintrain Consortium: Methods of clinical fMRI Neurofeedback for Clinical Use
Dr Janna-Marie Bas-Hoogendam, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
Dr Phil Burnet, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Dr Kath Hart, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Prof Glenn Gibson, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Dr Jennifer Lau, Queen Mary University, London, UK
Dr Karina Quevedo, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
Prof Paul Sowden, University of Winchester, Winchester, UK
Dr Catharina Zich, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Industrial partners:
