BAP Information for the Public

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16th Annual Jeeves Lecture: The Impact of Neuroscience on Society: The Neuroethics of ‘Smart Drugs’ published May 2013
by By Emma Moody and Rudi Stanislaus-Carter

Emma Moody (Upper 6th, Dollar Academy, Scotland), and Rudi Stanislaus-Carter (first year PhD student, St Andrews University) give their reaction to the 16th Annual Jeeves lecture at the School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews. The lecture, given by Professor Barbara Sahakian (Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University,) was entitled: The Impact of Neuroscience on Society: The Neuroethics of ‘Smart Drugs’.

Following the lecture, Professor Sahakian signed copies of the book she has recently co-authored with Dr Jamie Nicole Labuzetta: Bad Moves: How decision making goes wrong, and the ethics of smart drugs (OUP, 2013).

BNA2013: Impulsivity compulsivity and habit formation published April 2013
by Dr Samar Reghunandanan, MD MRCPsychiatry, ST5 Specialty Registrar and Honorary Research Fellow, North Essex Partnership NHS Mental Health Foundation Trust & National OCD and BDD Services

Report on a session conducted at the ‘Festival of Neuroscience’, organised by the British Neuroscience Association.

The ‘Festival of Neuroscience’ was a 4-day scientific event held at the Barbican centre in London, UK. This was an event organised by the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) in partnership with eighteen societies with interests in both clinical and non-clinical aspects of neuroscience. There were 56 scientific sessions and 7 plenary lectures involving more than 240 speakers, over 80 from outside the UK. The session on ‘Impulsivity Compulsivity and Habit Formation’ was a contribution from the British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP).

A Brief History of Psychiatric Drug Development published April 2013
by Dr Hugh Marston

The first major breakthroughs in the development of effective psychiatric drugs came in the years following the Second World War. The introduction of effective anti-psychotics, to treat schizophrenia, and anti-depressants revolutionised how the mentally ill were cared for. The ability to control the florid symptoms of psychotic episode in schizophrenia or break someone out of a deep depression was a major step forward. For the first time many patients were able to live more ‘normal’ lives inside and on occasion outside of the confines of asylums and mental hospitals. Patients with more developed and serious conditions experienced a slowing down of the worsening of their disorders. A few suffers were even able to become treatment free as their illness appeared to disappear.

Smart Pills Anyone? published March 2013
by Dr Emilio Fernandez-Egea, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge

Why not use pills to get smarter? This was the topic of an extraordinarily engaging event entitled ‘Smart Pills, anyone?’ that took place on the evening of Monday 18th March at the Cambridge Science Festival 2013. The event was organized by the Naked Scientists (delivery partner of the Wellcome Trust-funded Smarter UK project) and the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI), and was supported by the Wellcome Trust, the British Association for Psychopharmacology and the University of Cambridge. Fully booked and attended by more than 150 people, mostly college students, ‘Smart Pills, anyone?’ was chaired by Alok Jha (science correspondent at The Guardian) and included presentations by a panel composed of Professor Barbara Sahakian (Department of Psychiatry and the MRC/Wellcome Trust BCNI University of Cambridge), Dr. Hannah Critchlow (Naked Scientists) and Ben Johnston (Graphic Science and lead of the Smarter UK project). The evening also included a highly articulate debate on the use of cognitive enhancers by GSCE/A Level students from local schools.

Cambridge Science Festival 2013 Event - “Focusing ADHD” published March 2013
by Dr Muzaffer Kaser, Psychiatrist, PhD Candidate at Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge

The Cambridge Science Festival 2013 hosted the public event “Focusing ADHD” (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) on 14th March 2013. The event was a part of the Brain Awareness Week (11th-17th March) campaign. Many public engagement events took place all over the UK to raise awareness for brain and mental health problems. “Focusing ADHD” event was organised by the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI) and sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, the British Association for Psychopharmacology and the University of Cambridge.

Visualising the Effects of Ketamine published December 2012
by Sara De Simoni, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London

What is ketamine?
Ketamine is an anaesthetic which was first developed by the drug company Parke-Davis in 1962. It is typically considered a ‘dissociative’ anaesthetic due to the unusual effects it can produce, which include out-of-body experiences. Recent years have also seen significant growth in its use within the party scene, where it is commonly referred to as ‘Special K’. However, as it has a safety profile superior to that of many other anaesthetics, ketamine is still widely used by clinicians for emergency, paediatric and veterinary anaesthesia (Jansen, 2001; Perry et al., 2007).

BAP at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival, June 2012 published November 2012
by Gavin Reynolds

BAP had, for the third year running, a strong presence at the premier British Science Festival in Cheltenham last June. We supported two events, each of which was sold out to capacity audiences: one on depression and one addressing the roles of genes and environment in mental illness. These events are both challenging and hugely rewarding for speakers: challenging in the need for each speaker to condense often very complex topics into about 10 minutes, rewarding in the enthusiastic response and feedback that comes from the audience. The majority of the hour or so of each session is given over to open discussion, and this often carries on with audience members and speakers for long after the end of the event, as it did for the BAP sessions.

Psychopharmacology of Alcohol Use published October 2012
by Sally Adams, University of Bristol

Why study alcohol use?

Alcohol is a widely available, legal drug in the United Kingdom. Most individuals drink some alcohol, with around 70 % of men and 55 % of women reporting having consumed an alcoholic drink on at least one day during the previous week. Heavy alcohol use appears to be a factor in risky, aggressive and socially unacceptable behaviours and is associated with increased risk for liver disease and cirrhosis, several types of cancer, raised blood pressure and coronary heart disease. As a result there is growing concern about the societal impact of heavy alcohol use, including the associated burden on the economy and public health. Psychopharmacology research is developing our understanding of how alcohol affects behaviours and thought processes that might lead to heavy and harmful alcohol use, including short-term (e.g. intoxication and drunkenness) and long-term (e.g. continued drinking over a long period of time) effects of alcohol use on how we act and think.

Pot Luck – does smoking cannabis increase your chances of becoming psychotic? published October 2012
by Suzi Gage, School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol

Schizophrenia is a rare but serious illness, which can cause psychotic symptoms, anxiety and depression, and emotional ‘flattening’, amongst other things. You can read more about schizophrenia elsewhere on the site here. While intoxicated on cannabis, people can experience short-term feelings of paranoia, hallucinations or delusions, which are similar to the psychotic experiences of schizophrenics. But feeling paranoid while you’re ‘high’ or under the effects of the drug is not the same as having a debilitating disorder like schizophrenia. Intoxication effects last a few hours; psychosis can involve episodes for days, or longer.

The impact of a county-wide lithium monitoring database published September 2012
by Emma Kirkham, PhD student, School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia, Norwich and Prof. Stephen Bazire, Consultant Pharmacist, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Professor, School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia, Norwich

What is lithium?
In the 5th century AD a Roman physician was reputed to have recommended the use of alkaline waters to patients suffering with mental disorders. The effect of these waters on their mental state is thought to be due to the lithium levels found in them (Marmol 2008). Since the 1800s lithium has been used to treat recurrent depression and other depressive states. It is now the ’Gold standard‘ treatment for bipolar disorder (manic-depression), both for mania and relapse prevention. Lithium is also used with other antidepressant treatments in difficult to treat depression (Cade 1949; Collins, Barnes et al. 2010).

Caffeine – humankind’s favourite drug published September 2012
by Professor Peter Rogers, University of Bristol

More people consume caffeine more often than any other drug. Worldwide the predominant sources of caffeine are tea and coffee, although colas, ‘energy’ drinks, mate, guarana, and cocoa (chocolate) also contribute significantly to consumption.

After consumption of a caffeine-containing drink, caffeine is distributed rapidly throughout the body, reaching its highest concentration in the bloodstream and in the brain within 30-40 minutes. Caffeine and its metabolites are then gradually eliminated from the body, mainly in the urine. For adults, the elimination half-life of caffeine – the time it takes for half of the caffeine consumed to be eliminated from the body – is around 3 to 6 hours.

How Antidepressants Work published July 2012
by Catherine J Harmer, DPhil, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Oxford
Carmine M. Pariante, MD, MRCPsych, PhD, Professor of Biological Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

Depression is a clinical condition broadly characterised by pervasive sadness and by lack of enjoyment of every-day life activites. It is distinguished from normal sadness because of its duration (at least 10-14 days of continuous or almost continuous presence of these emotional difficulties) and by its negative impact on daily functioning, in areas such as work performances and personal relationships. In most cases, depression is also associated with feeling of anxiety and with disrupted sleep, appetite and libido. At its worst, depression is accompanied by the very distressing thoughts such as that life is not worth living, and even by acts of self-harm leading to attempted or successful suicide. In the Western world, depression is considered one of the leading causes of disability, with one in five people experiencing depression in the lifetime.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder published June 2012
by S. Clare Stanford, Reader in Experimental Psychopharmacology, University College London

ADHD affects about 5% of children worldwide, regardless of culture. It is more than 2-fold more common in boys and over half of children with ADHD continue to suffer from this disorder as adults. Diagnosis of ADHD is based on ‘hyperactivity’ (e.g. inability to sit still, lack of organisation), ‘inattentiveness’ (forgetful, poor concentration, abandoning tasks before completion) and ‘impulsivity’ (acting without considering the risks, interrupting). These three features must be evident before the age of seven; they must be present in at least two settings (e.g., school, workplace or home); and they must last for at least 6 months. The expression of ADHD by patients is described as either: Predominantly Inattentive (more common in girls), Predominantly Hyperactive / Impulsive (more common in boys) or Combined type (Inattentive and hyperactivity/impulsive), but these are not fixed subtypes and they can change with time in individual patients. For instance, hyperactivity usually disappears as children approach adulthood, although a feeling of ‘restlessness’ persists.

Dementia – an epidemic of the 21st century? published March 2012
by Professor Paul T Francis, PhD, Professor of Neurochemistry, Director, Brains for Dementia Research, Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King's College London

Alzheimer’s Disease International estimate 35.6 million people living with dementia worldwide in 2010, increasing to 65.7 million by 2030 and 115.4 million by 2050. In the UK currently up to 820,000 people are living with dementia.

Cambridge Science Festival 2012 - Understanding Excess published March 2012
by Dr Samar Reghunandanan, MD, MRC Psychiatry, ST4 Registrar in Psychiatry & Honorary Research Fellow, North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust & National OCD and BDD services, Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

A neuropsychiatry seminar entitled ‘Understanding excess’ was hosted by the University of Cambridge on 14 March 2012. It was one of the many free events celebrating the Cambridge Science Festival around the theme of ‘breaking boundaries’; reflecting the year of the Olympic and Paralympics games, and showcasing the boundaries that are being broken in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Mental health, neuroscience and the wellbeing of society published July 2011

The following recordings were made at the British Association for Psychopharmacology summer annual meeting 2011 during the Plenary Session on Mental Health, Neuroscience and the Wellbeing of Society. The participants were international leaders in the field of mental health, neuroscience and the wellbeing of society. The BAP was very fortunate to have not only a group of eminent speakers, but also leaders with vision for important new developments in the field. The audience feedback indicated that the talks were outstanding and there was a very high quality of discussion. As a tribute to the excellence of the speakers the audience filled the room and there was standing room only. Due to the importance of the participants’ talks and the demand by the members of the BAP we have made these recordings available. The first recording is an introduction to the panel topic and the participants, and the following recordings are the talks by the individual speakers of the panel.

Cheltenham Science Festival 2011 - Schizophrenia published June 2011
by Peter Haddad, Gavin Reynolds, Marjorie Wallace

The British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP) organised a session at the 2011 Cheltenham Science Festival that explored Schizophrenia. The session, held in the town hall on 8th June, proved extremely popular with a ‘full house’. Professor Kathy Sykes, Festival Director, chaired the session that comprised presentations by three speakers, Marjorie Wallace, Dr Peter Haddad and Professor Gavin Reynolds. Following the presentations there was a lively question-and-answer session which continued in an informal manner in the ‘talking booth’. Members of the audience raised many pertinent questions and several discussed their personal experience of living with schizophrenia or having a relative who had been affected by the illness. These personal testimonies were extremely powerful and highlighted a range of issues including both positive and negative experiences of NHS care, stigma and how some sufferers had strived to successfully overcome their illness and lead as full a life as possible. The session was a great success both in terms of the number of attendees, the audience interaction and the quality of the presentations and discussion. A summary of the three presentations is provided below.

Cheltenham Science Festival 2011 - Understanding Excess published June 2011
by Dr BaluPitchiah, Prof. Naomi Fineberg

British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP) in association with Society of Biology proudly sponsored an informative and educative public engagement event titled “Understanding Excess”, a discussion on compulsive and addictive behaviour at this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival.

The Science of Impulsive Behaviour published January 2011
by Jeff Dalley, Daniele Caprioli, Trevor Robbins, Barry Everitt, Tim Fryer, Franklin Aigbirhio, Adrian Carpenter, Steve Sawiak

People who are impulsive tend to act before thinking. There are many varieties of impulsivity from the premature expression of behaviour before sufficient information is gathered (‘reflection impulsivity’) to the tendency of accepting small immediate or likely rewards as opposed to larger but delayed or unlikely rewards (‘choice’ impulsivity). It is also on occasion associated with aggression. In conceptual terms it is helpful to categorise impulsivity into ‘stopping’ and ‘waiting’ subtypes. In the former case this is assessed by the inhibition or cancellation of a response that has already been started. This is different from ‘waiting’ impulsivity which is best described as a dislike or intolerance of delayed rewards.

The Genetics of Tobacco Use published January 2011
by Professor Marcus Munafò, School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol

Although there are a number of treatments available to help people stop smoking (the most common being nicotine replacement therapies, such as patch and gum, and varenicline in the UK), these are only moderately effective. While they can double the chances of long-term abstinence from smoking in those attempting to quit, this is against a very low basic success rate. Therefore, most smokers (even those taking medications to help them stop and receiving good behavioural support) who attempt to stop eventually relapse to smoking.

MDMA [‘ecstasy’] and new designer drugs published January 2011
by Professor Richard Green

3,4 Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) was first synthesised and patented in 1912 as a precursor of other pharmacologically active compounds by the E. Merck company in Germany. It was examined by the US military in the 1950s, presumably as a chemical warfare agent since it is chemically related not only to other amphetamines but also mescaline. However the first report that it was psychoactive in humans was a paper in 1978 by Shulgin and Nichols. It rapidly became a well known ‘designer drug’; that is a compound with a chemical structural and pharmacological similarity to existing and illegal recreational drugs but, by being novel and not specifically listed, had escaped legal control. In 1985 the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classified MDMA as a Schedule 1 drug due to its high abuse potential and lack of known clinical use. The drug rapidly became illegal in most other countries but despite this its popularity surged often being taken at ‘rave’ or ‘techno’ dance clubs and parties. The peak of use came in the late 1980s and 1990s and a recent survey has suggested a marked decline in its popularity.

Does cannabidiol protect against the harmful effects of THC in cannabis? published January 2011

Cannabis has long been associated with poor memory, but new research suggests that the strain of cannabis makes all the difference¹. In a test of memory, only users of 'skunk'-type strains exhibited impaired recall when intoxicated, whereas people who smoked hashish or traditional herbal cannabis performed equally well whether they were stoned or sober. These findings suggest that an ingredient more plentiful in some types of cannabis than in others may help to reduce memory loss.

Bipolar Disorder published August 2010

Bipolar disorder or manic–depressive illness is characterized by the serial occurrence of repeated episodes of depressed and elevated mood. There are two main forms of Bipolar Disorder. In Bipolar I disorder elevated mood episodes are severe (referred to as “mania”) in Bipolar II disorder elevated mood is less severe (called “hypomania”) and there are frequent depressions. Bipolar I disorder is the best characterized and its treatments are the best studied. Less is known about how best to treat bipolar II disorder. A range of psychotropic medicines are available that can effectively treat manic/hypomanic episodes and/or depression. In addition medications are available to help prevent episodes of illness. The BAP bipolar guideline, revised in 2009, provide a detailed review of evidence?based supporting these treatment options along with recommendations for their use.

Antidepressants Do Work published August 2010

There has been a great deal of misinformation in the press in recent years about the value of antidepressants. Some publications and newspaper articles have claimed that they don’t work any better than placebo and even then only in more severely depressed patients. This is a highly misleading interpretation of the evidence which is extensive and shows clearly that antidepressants do work, even in the less severely depressed people.

ANXIETY SYMPTOMS and ANXIETY DISORDERS published August 2010

Anxiety is part of the normal response to stress and is usually short-lived and controllable. It probably allows someone to respond better to a perceived threat or danger (and is sometimes called the ‘fight-or-flight’ response). Anxiety symptoms are important when they are particularly severe, last longer than expected, occur in the absence of stress and impair everyday life. Anxiety symptoms can be physical (or ‘somatic’) and due to over-arousal (such as shortness of breath, a racing heart and excessive sweating), or psychological, such as feeling frightened, troublesome worrying or being irritable.

Doctors can diagnose anxiety disorders when a patient has had a certain number of symptoms for more than a specified time, providing these symptoms cause much distress and impair everyday life. There are several different anxiety disorders, which share many psychological and physical symptoms but each disorder has its own characteristic features. For example, recurrent unexpected ‘panic attacks’ occur in panic disorder, whilst recurring troublesome ruminations and repeated checking habits occur in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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