Roland Zahn studied medicine in Heidelberg and Aachen and received his research MD in cognitive neurology from the University of Aachen (RWTH) before completing his clinical training in psychiatry and psychotherapy at Freiburg University Hospital in Germany.

Funded by a fellowship from the German National Academy of Sciences, he investigated the neural basis of social knowledge and moral emotions such as guilt at the US National Institutes of Health.

At the University of Manchester his research on mood disorders and frontotemporal dementia was supported by a Stepping Stones and MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship and focused on elucidating the neural bases of self-blame in mood disorders.

In Manchester, he also trained in old age psychiatry and subsequently worked as an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in specialist cognitive assessment and affective disorders services.

He has joined the Centre for Affective Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London in 2013 as a Senior Clinical Lecturer and since 2022, as a Clinical Professor of Mood Disorders & Cognitive Neuroscience. In 2025, he has stepped up as the joint director of the Centre. From 2021, he has been the Acting Deputy Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine and the Deputy Theme Lead for Mood Disorders within the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health.

As an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, his focus has been on mood disorders at the National Service for Affective Disorders, where he leads the Vagus Nerve Stimulation clinic within the Maudsley Advanced Treatment service, as well as in primary care settings in South London and as well as running a specialist mood clinic within the King’s Student Counselling and Mental Health services. 

Research Interests

Based on his previous work on the role of the right anterior temporal lobe in representing and differentiating social concepts and the role of the subgenual region in social agency detection and affiliative value underpinning blame biases as reflected in the phenomenology of affective disorders, he is developing prediction models for prognosis and personalisation of treatments and care pathways (precision psychiatry and decision support systems) using neurocognitive markers.

He further seeks to develop novel blended digital and neuromodulation treatments aimed at cognitive-anatomical correlates of self-blaming biases and loss of affiliative interest, which are key symptoms of depression.

His long-term goal is to collaborate with colleagues to advance our understanding of mood disorders with a comprehensive and integrated translational cognitive neuroscience model which bridges the phenomenology of symptoms with psychological, neural and molecular mechanisms. 

Research Groups

Professor Roland Zahn is Joint Director of the Centre for Affective Disorders

Expertise and Public Engagement

Roland Zahn's research on the neurocognitive bases of self-blame and mood disorders was featured in several media interviews and documentary films, such as:

• "The Apologist" - a unique genre of film about the role of collective guilt and public apologies: https://www.theapologist.be/
• Alastair Campbell - describing his experience of self-blame neurofeedback in his book and film ""Depression and Me"" on BBC Horizon.
• BBC journalist James Longman going through the blame rebalancing neurofeedback procedure on BBC TV.
• BBC Radio 4 Today interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/newsid_9726000/9726081.stm
• The Correspondent interview: https://thecorrespondent.com/86/a-neuroscientists-guide-to-what-happens-in-your-brain-when-you-feel-guilt/11385030536-5a570837
  
  

Teaching

Roland Zahn leads the Understanding Affective Disorders module on the MSc in Affective Disorders.

Key Publications

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-psychopathology-of-mood-disorders-implications-for-identifyin/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/virtual-reality-assessment-of-social-interactions-and-prognosis-i/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/self-blame-in-major-depression-a-randomised-pilot-trial-comparing/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/moral-motivation-and-the-basal-forebrain/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/self-blame-selective-hyperconnectivity-between-anterior-temporal-/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/guilt-selective-functional-disconnection-of-anterior-temporal-and/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/social-conceptual-impairments-in-frontotemporal-lobar-degeneratio/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/social-concepts-are-represented-in-the-superior-anterior-temporal/

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/opinion-the-neural-basis-of-human-moral-cognition/

Additional Information 

Roland Zahn is an honorary principal investigator with Jorge Moll's lab at the D'Or Institute for Research & Education in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil