Support Schizophrenia Research

Understanding what happens in the brain cells of people with mental health conditions could provide vital information about how to identify and treat those problems. So to simulate and study the ways that cells interact, our researcher, Dr Sergiu Pasca, used state-of-the-art stem cell technology to recreate parts of a functioning human brain in the lab.

New research we’ve funded has linked – for the first time – an increase in consumption of folic acid during pregnancy with changes in children’s brain development. And this was associated with a reduction in the incidence of psychotic symptoms.

Professor Andrew Thompson and his team at the University of Warwick are investigating if virtual reality help people with schizophrenia benefit from therapy without the need to engage in stressful social situations.

When an individual experiences psychosis symptoms for the first time it is important that timely interventions are provided prevent further issues. However, the first episode of psychosis is often in adolescents and young adults when engagement with mental health services is frequently difficult.

Can social prescribing help people with severe mental illness and if so, is it accessible for them?

People with severe mental illnesses are more likely to die from infectious disease than the general population, however little is known about why or what the underlying factors are that might explain this increased risk of premature mortality.

This project, led by James Walters at Cardiff University, set out to investigate the impact of genetic risk factors on physical health in people with schizophrenia.

Dr. Symon Kariuki is looking at genetic information from sub-Saharan African populations to understand more about epilepsy and mental illness.

Antipsychotic medications used to treat schizophrenia can cause adverse side effects. Being able to predict these will improve treatments.

Learn what the signs of psychosis are and how you can help someone suffering from the condition.

In this blog Alex describes what it was like to experience psychosis for the first time. Why she wants to see same funding put into finding treatments for mental illness as there is for physical illness.

We interviewed MQ-funded researcher Dr. Petra Vértes about her work to find out what’s going on in the brain when symptoms of schizophrenia arise. She’s joined by Dr Sarah Morgan, her close collaborator from PSYSCAN.

Judith Pratt is a Neuroscience Research Professor at the University of Strathclyde and an MQ Ambassador. We asked Judith to explain a bit more about this often misunderstood condition.