Contact information
+44 (0)1865 618311
Fax +44 (0)1865 250176
Linda Carter
linda.carter@psych.ox.ac.uk
Philip Cowen
Professor of Psychopharmacology
I trained in medicine at University College Hospital, London, and then in psychiatry at King’s College Hospital. I then came to Oxford to work in the MRC Unit of Clinical Pharmacology under David Grahame-Smith. In his laboratory I studied the basic neuropharmacology of serotonin and its application to clinical psychopharmacology. Since 1983 I have been MRC Clinical Scientist and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in the Department of Psychiatry in Oxford. I was elected to a personal chair in Psychopharmacology at the University of Oxford in 1997 and to a Fellowship of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001. I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Association of Psychopharmacology in 2014. My main interests are in the biochemistry and treatment of mood disorders, particularly the pharmacological management of resistant depression. I am senior author of the Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry (most recent edition, 2017).
My Research
My research focuses on the psychopharmacology of depression. I am interested in the biochemical changes that are associated with depression and how drugs work to alleviate the symptoms that depressed patients experience.
Clinical depression is an important public health problem and one of the leading contributors to the global burden of disease. Current treatments, although very helpful, are not effective for an important minority of patients, particularly those referred to mental health services. The rate of discovery of new drug treatments for depression is low partly because our knowledge of the underlying neurobiology is limited.
My group uses a variety of brain imaging methods as well neuropsychological technigues to clarify the brain changes in depression. We also study the effects of psychotropic drugs in these models. We study people who are acutely unwell as well as those at risk of depression because, for example, they have a previous history of the illness or a family history of mood disorder. In the latter respect much of our current work focuses on identifying neurobiological risk factors for young people at risk of depression in the hope of finding simple interventions to help prevent the onset of depression.
Key publications
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Ethyl beta-carboline carboxylate lowers seizure threshold and antagonizes flurazepam-induced sedation in rats.
Journal article
Cowen PJ. et al, (1981), Nature, 290, 54 - 55
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Journal article
Cowen PJ. et al, (1995), Nature, 376
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Journal article
Smith KA. et al, (1997), Lancet, 349, 915 - 919
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Journal article
Sargent PA. et al, (2010), J Affect Disord, 123, 77 - 80
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Antidopaminergic effects of dietary tyrosine depletion in healthy subjects and patients with manic illness.
Journal article
McTavish SF. et al, (2001), Br J Psychiatry, 179, 356 - 360
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Journal article
Harmer CJ. et al, (2009), Am J Psychiatry, 166, 1178 - 1184
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Journal article
Mannie ZN. et al, (2013), Br J Psychiatry, 203, 18 - 23
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Journal article
Cowen PJ. and Browning M., (2015), World Psychiatry, 14, 158 - 160
Recent publications
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When Helping is Risky: The Behavioral and Neurobiological Tradeoff of Social and Risk Preferences
Journal article
gross J. et al, (2021), Psychological Science
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When Helping is Risky: The Behavioral and Neurobiological Tradeoff of Social and Risk Preferences
Journal article
gross J. et al, (2021), Psychological Science
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Conference paper
DE CATES A. et al, (2020)
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Journal article
Harmer CJ. and Cowen PJ., (2018), Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci, 27, 141 - 142
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Journal article
Selvaraj S. et al, (2018), Neuropsychopharmacology, 43, 655 - 664