Websites
Collaborators
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Belinda Lennox
Head of Department
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Paul Harrison
Professor of Psychiatry; Associate Head of Department (Research)
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Dr Lahiru Handunnetthi
Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant Neurologist
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Rachel Upthegrove
Professor of Psychiatry, Director NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre
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Anya Topiwala
Senior Clinical Researcher
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Riccardo De Giorgi
Senior Clinical Researcher
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Amedeo Minichino
Associate Professor, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist
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Maxime Taquet
Associate Professor
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Graham Blackman
Senior Clinical Researcher
Adam Al-Diwani
MA BMBCh DPhil MRCP MRCPsych
Senior Clinical Researcher
- NIHR Oxford Health BRC Senior Fellow and Chief Investigator - Neuroimmune mechanisms in brain health study (ANIMATE)
- Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, OHFT
Neuroimmunology in Neuropsychiatry
I am a clinician-scientist working at the interface of neuropsychiatry and neuroimmunology. I seek to understand bi-directional neuro-immune mechanisms in health and disease at phenotype and cellular levels.
During my Wellcome-funded DPhil (17-20) I applied cervical lymph node sampling to show this brain-draining region harbours lymphocytes directed against the NMDA glutamate receptor (Supervisors: Lennox, Irani).
In my NIHR CL (21-25) I went on to show that the cervical lymph nodes are enriched for brain proteins including those of relevance to Alzheimer's pathogenesis. Together with immunology colleagues (Klenerman, Provine, Pollock), I now focus on relating the biochemistry and immunology of this system to wider brain health in ageing with and without cognitive impairment. I lead a descriptive bio-sampling study within the NIHR OH BRC molecular targets theme to explore this and other clinical-laboratory correlations (ANIMATE, co-I Lennox, Harrison, Handunnetthi, Minichino).
Clinically, I pioneered mapping the psychiatric phenotype in NMDA receptor-antibody encephalitis, towards improving clinical recognition and rationalising antibody testing. I sit in a regional multi-disciplinary team chaired by Professor Lennox together with neurology colleagues to advise on complex cases with a possible neuroimmune component. I founded a working group on autoimmune encephalitis in psychiatry within the RCPsych neuropsychiatry faculty that is producing a report towards national guidance.