The power to improve lives, anywhere: the impact of global research collaboration

We don’t think this is acceptable which is why Professor Steve Williams from King’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is leading a remarkable international research initiative to improve chances of survival of babies and infants by using portable MRI machines. Using this game-changing equipment, Professor Williams and the team can understand and address the impact of malnutrition, infection and maternal anaemia on how babies’ brains develop in early life.

Europe’s first portable MRI devices were delivered to the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital and in 2021, through a programme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Measuring less than 1.4 metres high and 1 metre wide, these mobile, ‘plug-in’ machines can complete a brain scan in minutes and are designed to be used by healthcare teams - even in challenging settings with poor facilities and very little technological infrastructure.

Our consortium has already installed 20 scanners across four continents. Their work scanning babies’ brains in those critical early hours, days and weeks of life will help support major trials and studies that will help children to survive and thrive. So far, we have collaborated with teams in South Africa, Uganda, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana and Zambia with further alliances with India, Kenya, Bangladesh and Tanzania planned for the coming year.

For the past year, the Lab has been testing virtual kitchen scenarios that could help young people with anorexia to overcome their food anxiety. In the VR kitchen, individuals are introduced to either a positive mood induction procedure (in the form of a playful virtual pet they can interact with) or a motivational script spoken out loud by a supportive avatar to ‘buffer’ their anxiety towards threatening foods. This can spark people’s recoveries - enabling them to eat more, including the ‘forbidden’ foods they may have avoided for years.

Dr Valentina Cardi, based at the University of Padova, leads this study funded by the Medical Research Council, and has been able to test the VR scenarios with almost 100 people between the ages of 16 - 25 in Italy, thanks to the multi-lingual capacity of the VR software. The programme has recently been approved by an NHS Ethics Committee in the UK and the University Hospital Ethics Committee in Padova - an important step in these early stages of testing. Involving researchers from different countries has been crucial in getting the team to this stage. Dr Cardi explains:

Dr Vishal Bhavsar, an NHS doctor and mental health researcher at King’s, has been leading some of these innovative collaborations. His work includes:

Conducting research with charities and policymakers in the UK and Australia, combining expertise to improve how mental health professionals respond to families exposed to domestic violence around the globe.

Collaborating with researchers in the US to explore the most effective ways to support the mental health of children and young people presenting to emergency departments following violence. By developing links with global institutions such as the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies based in New Orleans, he works directly with children and young people from deprived communities to improve support where it is needed the most.

Partnering with a global network of researchers, as part of the Hospital Alliance for Violence Intervention, to develop a mental health evaluation framework which can help healthcare providers around the world set up and continuously improve mental healthcare for young people exposed to violence.