Research on the causes of environmental sensitivity and the impact of chronic illness on mental health are some of the many impactful areas our world-leading academics focus on.
As a student on the programme you will benefit from the wealth of interesting research coming out from both the Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology and the Centre for Psychiatry, a world leading institution in research on cultural, social and environmental aspects of public mental health research, which found itself ranked 5th in the Research Excellence Framework 2014.
One such example of our fascinating research comes from Professor Pluess, who through a twins study, found our sensitivity is partly in our genes. The study, published in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry compared pairs of identical and non-identical 17-year-old twins to see how strongly they were affected by positive or negative experiences – their ‘sensitivity’ level. The aim was to tease out how much of the differences in sensitivity could be explained by either genetic or environmental factors during development: nature or nurture.
Twins who are brought up together will mostly experience the same environment. But only identical twins share the same genes: non-identical twins are like any other sibling. If identical twins show no more similarity in their levels of sensitivity than non-identical twins, then genes are unlikely to play a role.
Using this type of analysis, the team found that 47 percent of the differences in sensitivity between individuals were down to genetics, leaving 53 percent accounted for by environmental factors. The research is the first to show this link conclusively in such a large study.
Professor Pluess has also recently launched new website for people to test their sensitivity based on his research.
Over at the Centre for Psychiatry, academics have recently demonstrated that chronic illness in childhood is linked to higher rates of mental illness. Researchers reviewed a sample of approximately 7000 children to investigate the occurrence of mental health disorders, including anxiety or depression, and chronic illness.
The researchers found that children with chronic health conditions were approximately twice as likely at 10 and at 13 to present with a mental health disorder than the control group. At age 15, children with chronic health problems were 60% more likely to present with such disorders. Although the link between chronic health conditions and mental health problems in childhood has been made before, this study provides the strongest evidence of it to date in the years of late childhood and early adolescence and provides evidence to help to identify those who are most at risk.