The Centre for Affective Disorders (CfAD) is a centre of excellence dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of mood and anxiety disorders and translating these insights into novel risk prediction tools, treatments and their personalisation, including those based on psychological, pharmacological, neurocognitive, neuromodulation, and digital therapeutics.

The Centre was founded in 2013 under the exemplary leadership of its founding director, Professor Allan Young, who stepped down from this role in 2024. Under his inaugural leadership, CfAD has become one of the most innovative and exciting hubs for clinicians and researchers passionate about affective disorders, drawing interest from across the globe.

Professor Young continues to retain a link as the Emeritus Director of CfAD, whilst Professor Anthony Cleare and Professor Roland Zahn have stepped up as Joint Directors since 2025.

CfAD has brought together a number of world-leading clinician scientists and professors at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, including former Co-Director, Professor Anthony Cleare, alongside Professor Andre Tylee, now an Emeritus, and Professor Carmine Pariante.

Since then, the CfAD academic faculty has grown and expanded into new areas such as psychedelics and psychotherapy, as well as translational cognitive neuroscience and phenomenological psychopathology. Given that affective disorders overlap with many other areas of psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry and medicine, CfAD members collaborate with colleagues throughout King’s College London and beyond and have established a network of affiliates.

CfAD also hosts the International Society for Affective Disorders (President: Professor Anthony Cleare) and the World Psychiatric Association Section for Affective Disorders.

Education

Our education mission is embodied by the MSc in Affective Disorders, a unique specialist and interdisciplinary course giving equal weight to biology and psychology, that has repeatedly won awards for student satisfaction. For more than a decade now, our alumni have become important advocates for the waning art of differential diagnosis and research-driven, inter-disciplinary and transcultural clinical practice. 

Research Areas

Affective Disorders Research Group 

The Affective Disorders Research Group, led by Professor Anthony Cleare, works to understand more about the neurobiological causes of mood disorders (also known as affective disorders). Affective Disorders are mental illnesses where the normal functioning of mood is disrupted, including clinical depression and bipolar disorder.

Rina Dutta Lab

Professor Rina Dutta’s lab’s research interests include suicide, self-harm, causes of premature mortality, mental and physical co-morbidities, and the use of datasets for clinical research. 

Her current five-year research programme is e-HOST-IT: Electronic health records to predict HOspitalised Suicide attempts: Targeting Information Technology solutions.

Cynthia Fu Lab

Professor Cynthia Fu’s lab centres on identifying biomarkers to improve classification in mood disorders and to predict treatment response at the individual level and the development of novel treatments.

Our NIMH COORDINATE-MDD consortium is leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify biomarkers and predictors of treatment response from complex multidimensional neuroimaging data sets.

In the development of novel treatments grounded in mechanistic understanding, our NIHR clinical trials are investigating neuromodulation treatments in unipolar depression (NIHR165425 HOME) and bipolar depression (NIHR167361 BDEP). Our Rosetrees Trust-funded study in adolescent depression, integrates psychoanalytic perspectives and neuroscience for personalised treatment approaches.

Mario Juruena Lab

Professor Mario Juruena is a Professor of Translational Psychiatry, and leads the Maudsley Advance Treatment Service- MATS, which works to develop new treatments for treatment-resistant depression and treatment-resistant bipolar disorder.

His lab seeks to understand the essential triggers of treatment-resistant affective disorders, and improve clinical treatments and patient response, developing clinical trials for new targets in pharmacotherapy and neuromodulation, novel clinical assessment tools and translation of our research findings into novel treatments.

His lab has been interested in developing biomarkers, genetics, neuroimage and neuroendocrine factors, running this Translational Psychiatry Research Programme, he has been studying the connections between stress, mainly early life stress, the neuroendocrine axis and impaired cognition in treatment-resistant affective disorders.

Psychoimmunometabolix & Interaction with the Environment (PIXIE) Lab 

Professor Valeria Mondelli’s lab focuses on the interaction between biological and psychosocial risk factors in the development of psychiatric disorders with a specific focus on depression. More specifically, we study the role of inflammation, cortisol, and other hormones and their interaction with stressful experiences in early life in the development of depression in both adolescents and adults.

Our aim is to develop personalised and more effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression, guided by biomarker and psychosocial factors profiles. 

Neurological Affective and Dissociative Symptoms (NEUROADS) Lab

The Neurological Affective and Dissociative Symptoms (NEUROADS) Lab is based in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London.

Led by Dr Susannah Pick, our work is focused primarily on investigating causes and mechanisms underlying neurological, affective, and dissociative symptoms, as well as exploring interactions between these symptom types.

We use a range of methodologies, including clinical measures, lab-based experiments, psychophysiology, neuroimaging, digital remote monitoring technologies, and qualitative techniques

Psychoactive Trials Group

The Psychoactive Trials Group at the Centre for Affective Disorders is undertaking controlled clinical trials with psychedelics and related compounds such as psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT and MDMA. We are studying psychedelic therapies for different conditions including treatment-resistant depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. These trials are led by Dr James Rucker and Professor Allan Young.

The aim of these trials is to explore the safety and effectiveness of these therapies. In addition, we are investigating how these new approaches could be realised in healthcare systems, developing therapist training programs and training resources for wider implementation, if they are licensed.

Paul Stokes Lab

Professor Paul Stokes’ lab uses MRI neuroimaging to understand the brain mechanisms underlying reward and cognitive symptoms in mood disorders, and to identify how potential new treatments effect brain function.

We evaluate the best ways of treating mood disorders by using clinical trials and meta-analyses methodologies and have a particular interest in treatment-resistant bipolar depression and addiction co-morbidity.

Finally, we use the CRIS clinical record system to understand the diagnostic differences (for example unipolar mania) and treatment challenges experienced by people with mood disorders.

Rebecca Strawbridge Lab

Dr Rebecca Strawbridge’s lab: Our group focuses on improving care for people with affective disorders through high-quality evidence synthesis and targeted clinical research. We conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses to identify the gaps in care, the most effective treatments and predictors of response, supporting more personalised approaches to care. 

A major area of interest is lithium treatment, where we investigate its mechanisms, potential new indications, and strategies to enhance adherence, safety and long-term outcomes.

Our team brings together pre-doctoral researchers, clinicians, post-doctoral researchers, MSc and PhD students, working collaboratively with a goal to translate research into meaningful improvements in affective health.

Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Lab and Perinatal Psychiatry Section

In the Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology laboratory (SPI-Lab) Research Group, led by Professor Carmine Pariante which includes the Perinatal Psychiatry team, we aim to understand how stress hormones and inflammatory responses regulate behaviour and participate to the therapeutic action of psychotropic drugs.

The research spans a variety of clinical settings, with a emphasis on clinical conditions where there are prominent changes in stress biological markers, such as depression, first-episode psychosis, women in the perinatal period (and their infants), individuals with history of trauma, and patients with inflammation-related medical disorders such as viral hepatitis and chronic fatigue.

Roland Zahn Lab

Professor Roland Zahn’s lab focuses on the translational cognitive neuroscience of affective disorders by employing methods including phenomenological psychopathology, mobile technology, virtual reality, neuropsychology, neuroimaging and their links with neurochemistry, neuromodulation, neurofeedback, machine learning-based prediction modelling, as well as computerised decision support systems.

The overall aim is to use cognitive-anatomical models of organic and non-organic mood disorders to develop novel personalised treatments, algorithms, and diagnostic systems

Patricia Zunszain Lab

Professor Patricia Zunszain’s group research interests comprise the interface between neuroscience, mental health and wellbeing, with a focus on postgraduate education.

Collaborators

Beyond academics in the Department of Psychological Medicine, CfAD also comprises a wider network of affiliated members with expertise in affective disorders from across the IoPPN, including the Department of Psychology and the Department of Child and Adult Psychiatry.

Professor Jaime Delgadillo’s lab: Using methods from the fields of precision medicine and machine learning, Prof Delgadillo focuses on the development of personalized treatment selection and adaptation strategies for psychotherapy. He has led some of the pioneering clinical trials of stratified care for depression and feedback-informed treatment in NHS psychological therapy services. His current research is developing methods to match patients to therapists, treatments, and alternative doses and sequences of evidence-based interventions for affective and anxiety disorders.

Professor June Brown’s lab

Dr Clementine Edwards’ lab: Our research examines the mechanisms underlying a reduced experience of pleasure (anhedonia) and how these may differ or overlap across psychosis and depression. We explore phenomenology through qualitative interviews of individuals and carers. We are applying machine learning approaches to large datasets to identify dysfunctional patterns in affect, activity and pleasure in daily life which can be targeted with impactful interventions. The current programme of work is funded by Wellcome and utilises technology including smartphone applications, wearables and virtual reality to improve measurement of pleasure “in-the-moment" and therefore identify processes underlying anhedonia.

Professor Colette Hirsch’s lab

Professor Cathryn Lewis’s lab: The Statistical Genetics Unit, focusses on identifying the genomic predictors of depression, from risk to prognosis to response to treatment. She led the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium for six years, identifying over 600 novel genetic associations associated with depression. She leads the AMBER study (Antidepressant Medications: Biology, Exposure & Response) that aims to identify the causal determinants of antidepressant response using informatic, genomic and cellular approaches, and working closely with people with lived experience.

Professor Melanie Abas’ lab

Dr Toby Wise’s lab: Our research uses methods from computational neuroscience to understand how we learn and make decisions, and to explore how these decision-making processes are involved in common mental health problems like anxiety and depression. We are based in the Department of Neuroimaging within the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London and are funded by Wellcome. More information can be found on the lab’s website.

Research Participation

If you would like to participate in our studies, please sign up here.

Assessment/Test Instruments

If you would like to access assessment/test instruments or tools developed by CfAD, please get in touch with the corresponding author or find open access materials here:

• Maudsley Staging Model
• Maudsley-modified PHQ-9
• Maudsley Visual Analogue Scale
• dCVnet clinical prediction modelling tool
• Maudsley Treatment Inventory

CfAD is closely linked with the Maudsley Affective Disorders Treatment Services led by Dr James Rucker, where we seek to provide access to specialist advice and treatment to local patients (within the Maudsley Advanced Treatment Service, led by Professor Juruena and OPTIMA, led by Dr Karine Macritchie and shown to reduce hospital readmissions for bipolar patients) as well as those referred nationally within the National Affective Disorders service (led by Professor Anthony Cleare).

Our experts by lived experience help shape our research and can be engaged for specific studies, if you would like to get involved, please get in touch with principal investigators of studies you are interested in.

We are grateful to the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre for the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration for Mood Disorders for supporting CfAD among many other funders. This allows CfAD to be at the forefront of trials of novel treatments for affective disorders.