Psychiatry

Entry requirements

A UK 2:1 honours degree or its international equivalent.

Months of entry

January, April, September, October

Course content

The Division of Psychiatry is internationally recognised for its research and teaching.

We focus on the mechanisms underlying the development of major psychiatric disorders, including autism, bipolar disorder, depression, dementia and schizophrenia.

Expertise and studies

We have a particular expertise in longitudinal, clinical and biological studies of clinical and population-based cohort studies of people with or at high risk of mental disorders. The studies we have recruited or worked on include:

• The Edinburgh High Risk Studies of young people at high genetic cognitive risk for schizophrenia
• bipolar disorder and other related conditions
• Generation Scotland, a family and population-based study of 24,000 individuals recruited from the general population of Scotland.
• UK Biobank, a UK- and population-based study of more than half a million people from across England, Wales and Scotland

In psychiatric genetics, we take part in international genome wide association studies of psychiatric disorders - including the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) and ENIGMA that seeks to identify the genetic causes of psychiatric disorders. out work then utilities the findings in order to identify the environmental risk factors and neurobiological mechanisms of mental disorders, using genetic factors as causal anchors

Research methods

Our work relies on a number of genomic technologies, including genome wide association studies (GWAS), DNA sequencing, DNA methylation and expression analysis, proteomics, structural and functional neuroimaging. In collaboration with others, we also work on stem-cell, cultured tissue (including organoids) and in vivo models of psychiatric disorders and we are also involved in a number of clinical trials of novel interventions.

Major conditions of interest

Our major interests (that span the disciplines of Neurology and Psychiatry) include:

• Autism and learning disability (Andrew Stanfield)
• Depression and mood disorders (Andrew McIntosh)
• Dementia prevention (Craig Ritchie)
• Schizophrenia (Stephen Lawrie, Mandy Johnstone)
• Cognition and Behaviour (collaborations with the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology

Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology

We are also closely involved in three philanthropically funded Specialist Centres of Excellence:

• Patrick Wild Centre for Research into Autism, Fragile X Syndrome & Intellectual Disabilities (co-Directors Dr Peter Kind and Dr Andrew Stanfield)
• Centre for Dementia Prevention (Director Professor Craig Ritchie)
• Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology (Director Andrew McIntosh)