Dr Paul Stokes: Cognitive impairment, co-morbidity and treatment resistance: Taming the Chimera of Mood Disorders

In this presentation, Dr Paul Stokes (King’s College London) will discuss his work in addressing three unmet challenges in mood disorders – cognitive impairment, co-morbidity and treatment resistance. Paul will provide an overview of the importance of cognitive impairment in mood disorders and how this is a critical unmet treatment challenge. He will discuss using neuroimaging to better understand cognitive impairment in mood disorders and will then present his work on using pharmacological neuroimaging to provide new insights into potential new treatment mechanisms for cognitive impairment. Next, Paul will turn to co-morbidity. Paul will discuss how co-morbidity complicates the diagnosis of mood disorders and worsens clinical outcomes. He will present his work examining the prevalence and impacts of HIV co-morbidity and also cocaine use disorder co-morbidity in people with bipolar disorders in South London. Paul will also discuss his meta-analysis results examining the pharmacological treatment of mood disorders and addiction co-morbidity. Finally, Paul will discuss treatment resistance in mood disorders. Paul will discuss the how using a consensus definition of multi-therapy resistant bipolar depression that he led may provide insights into when to consider non-standard treatments for bipolar depression. Paul will then discuss his work with the NIHR PAX-BD clinical trial of pramipexole for bipolar depression (PAX-BD) and will also present the results of a network meta-analysis of the use of mono-amine oxidase inhibitors for depression which he recently led. Overall, Paul hopes the audience will gain new insights into better understanding and treating these three major unmet clinical challenges in mood disorders from his presentation.

Registration in advance is required: Register to attend 

About the Speaker

Dr Paul Stokes is Clinical Reader in Mood Disorders & Psychopharmacology at the Centre for Affective Disorders, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London (KCL), and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Paul studied medicine at the University of Birmingham and completed clinical training in psychiatry at the Maudsley training programme, London. In his doctoral studies at Imperial College London, Paul used PET and fMRI neuroimaging to examine the role of neurotransmitter systems in mediating psychosis, addictions and mood disorders. Paul joined the Centre for Affective Disorders, KCL, in 2013 where his main research interest is to use neuroimaging to better understand brain mechanisms which mediate mood disorders and related co-morbid addictions. Paul leads functional neuroimaging studies and clinical trials to better understand and assess new ways of treating mood and cognitive symptoms in mood disorders. Paul is also a member of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which makes recommendations to the UK Government on the control of recreational drugs. In his clinical work, Paul is a consultant psychiatrist with the tertiary National Affective Disorders Service at the Maudsley Hospital, a national specialist service for people with complex or treatment-resistant mood disorders.  

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all, both within and outside the University.  Registration in advance is required.