Professor James Stone
Novel treatments in psychiatry and neuroimaging
My research interests are focused on developing new and more effective treatments for people with mental illness, understanding the underlying neurochemical basis of psychiatric conditions, and working towards personalised medicine approaches.
My PhD students are currently involved in a wide variety of different projects including using functional MRI in people with depression with the aim of helping them to modulate brain activity in response to self-blaming thoughts; investigating the role of self-awareness and interoception during fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis; the effect of ketamine on brain chemistry during treatment for depression and the role of opioid receptors; the role of GABA in early psychosis and the use of probiotics as a treatment in people with major depressive disorder.
I am also currently working on projects around the detection and management of self-harm and suicide attempts in people with mental illness, and the early detection of people at high risk of developing schizophrenia. As well as my research work, I am also a consultant psychiatrist in liaison psychiatry, and have set up a pilot ketamine clinic for the treatment of people with hard to treat depression at Eastbourne Hospital.
Two possible areas for PhD research include collaborations with Dr Andrew Penn investigating the role of NMDA receptor activity in clinical response to ketamine; and a collaboration with Dr Alessandro Colasanti on the use of fMRI neurofeedback as a treatment in people with PTSD.
I am interested in meeting prospective students to discuss new projects around these and other areas.
Key references
- Kiemes, A., Gomes, F.V., Cash, D., Uliana, D.L., Simmons, C., Singh, N., Vernon, A.C., Turkheimer, F., Davies, C., Stone, J.M., Grace, A.A., Modinos, G. GABAA and NMDA receptor density alterations and their behavioral correlates in the gestational methylazoxymethanol acetate model for schizophrenia (2022) Neuropsychopharmacology, 47 (3), pp. 687-695.
- Nikolova, V.L., Hall, M.R.B., Hall, L.J., Cleare, A.J., Stone, J.M., Young, A.H. Perturbations in Gut Microbiota Composition in Psychiatric Disorders: A Review and Meta-analysis (2021) JAMA Psychiatry, 78 (12), pp. 1343-1354.
- Beck, K., Arumuham, A., Veronese, M., Santangelo, B., McGinnity, C.J., Dunn, J., McCutcheon, R.A., Kaar, S.J., Singh, N., Pillinger, T., Borgan, F., Stone, J., Jauhar, S., Sementa, T., Turkheimer, F., Hammers, A., Howes, O.D. N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor availability in first-episode psychosis: a PET-MR brain imaging study (2021) Translational Psychiatry, 11 (1), art. no. 425.
- Jelen, L.A., Lythgoe, D.J., Jackson, J.B., Howard, M.A., Stone, J.M., Egerton, A. Imaging Brain Glx Dynamics in Response to Pressure Pain Stimulation: A 1H-fMRS Study (2021) Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, art. no. 681419.
- Modinos, G., Richter, A., Egerton, A., Bonoldi, I., Azis, M., Antoniades, M., Bossong, M., Crossley, N., Perez, J., Stone, J.M., Veronese, M., Zelaya, F., Grace, A.A., Howes, O.D., Allen, P., McGuire, P. Interactions between hippocampal activity and striatal dopamine in people at clinical high risk for psychosis: relationship to adverse outcomes (2021) Neuropsychopharmacology, 46 (8), pp. 1468-1474.
- Pollak, T.A., Vincent, A., Iyegbe, C., Coutinho, E., Jacobson, L., Rujescu, D., Stone, J., Jezequel, J., Rogemond, V., Jamain, S., Groc, L., David, A., Egerton, A., Kahn, R.S., Honnorat, J., Dazzan, P., Leboyer, M., McGuire, P. Relationship Between Serum NMDA Receptor Antibodies and Response to Antipsychotic Treatment in First-Episode Psychosis (2021) Biological Psychiatry, 90 (1), pp. 9-15.
- McQueen, G., Sendt, K.-V., Gillespie, A., Avila, A., Lally, J., Vallianatou, K., Chang, N., Ferreira, D., Borgan, F., Howes, O.D., Barker, G.J., Lythgoe, D.J., Stone, J.M., McGuire, P., MacCabe, J.H., Egerton, A. Changes in Brain Glutamate on Switching to Clozapine in Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia (2021) Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47 (3), pp. 662-671.
- Nikolova, V.L., Cleare, A.J., Young, A.H., Stone, J.M. Updated review and meta-analysis of probiotics for the treatment of clinical depression: Adjunctive vs. stand-alone treatment (2021) Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10 (4), art. no. 647, pp. 1-14.
- Jelen, L.A., Young, A.H., Stone, J.M. Ketamine: A tale of two enantiomers (2021) Journal of Psychopharmacology, 35 (2), pp. 109-123.
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Collaborators within Sussex Neuroscience include: