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Brainpod - The Neuropsychopharmacology Podcast

Podcasts to Listen to (wellbeing)

With a typical search warrant, police are supposed to knock and announce themselves. But with no-knock warrants, police can force their way into people’s homes without warning.

This six-part investigative podcast from The Washington Post sheds light on how easy it is to plan, obtain and execute no-knock warrants — one of the most intrusive and dangerous police tactics. We explore the consequences when these warrants become the rule, rather than the exception.

Hosted by investigative reporters Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca, “Broken Doors” is about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system — and what happens when accountability is flawed at every level.

Episode 1: "That's what you get"

This episode of LSE iQ asks, ‘How can we tackle loneliness?’.  According to the Office for National Statistics, 7.1 per cent of adults in Great Britain - nearly 4 million people - say they 'often or always' feel lonely. Look around you when you’re in a crowded place – a supermarket or an office -  1 in 14 of the people you’re looking at are likely to be lonely, not just sometimes but most of the time.  

And that’s half a million more people saying that they feel chronically lonely in 2023 than there were in 2020 – suggesting that the pandemic has had some enduring impacts in this respect. 

Sue Windebank talks to a young person who responded to her own deep feelings of loneliness by campaigning to help others. She hears how people can be influenced to feel more or less lonely – at least for a short time.  And she got a surprising insight into which group of people are the loneliest. 

Sue talks to: Heather Kappes, Associate Professor of Management at LSE; David McDaid Associate Professorial Research Fellow in the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre at LSE; and Molly Taylor, Loneliness Activist and founder of #AloneNoMore.   

 

Contributors 

Heather Kappes 

David McDaid 

Molly Taylor 

 

Research 

The Role of Comparisons in Judgments of Loneliness by Andrew J. Arnold, Heather Barry Kappes, Eric Klinenberg and Piotr Winkielman. 

Tackling loneliness evidence review: main report by: Louise Arseneault; Manuela Barreto; Anne-Kathrin Fett; Nancy Hey; Sonia Johnson; Kalpa Kharicha; Timothy Matthews; David McDaid; Ellie Pearce; Alexandra Pitman; and Christina Victor. 

Addressing Loneliness in Older People Through a Personalized Support and Community Response Program by David McDaid and A-La Park.

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

LSE IQ podcast

How can we tackle loneliness?

Adolescent consumption of caffeine, the most commonly used psychoactive stimulant in the world, has increased strikingly in recent years. Caffeine use has been associated with illicit drug use and risky behaviors, but whether consumption of caffeine during adolescence has effects on the mature brain is controversial. In this podcast, author Ryan Bachtell discusses his recent study, which found that consumption of caffeine by male adolescent rats results in enduring neurobiological effects in a key reward area in the brain and an increased sensitivity to cocaine in adulthood.
http://www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Caffeine consumption in adolescents

In this issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, entitled Neurodevelopment and the Origins of Brain Disorders, subject discipline experts provide both experimental highlights and perspectives on the current understanding of basic mechanisms of neurodevelopment, the influence of developmental disruptions on childhood and adult-onset brain and behavioral disorders, and the emerging promise of translation into treatments. In this podcast, the editors of this year's volume, Pat Levitt (Simms/Mann Chair in Development Neurogenetics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles) and Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele (Mortimer D Sackler Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute), discuss the recent research and its future applications.
http://www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Neurodevelopment and the Origins of Brain Disorders

Marijuana use for medical purposes is becoming increasingly common in the U.S., and doctors prescribe it for ills ranging from headaches to insomnia. And yet, there is little scientific data supporting its medical use. In this podcast, Drs. Margaret Haney and Eden Evins discuss the relationship between cannabis use and two psychiatric disorders: post-traumatic stress disorder and psychotic illnesses, particularly schizophrenia.
www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Does Cannabis Cause, Exacerbate or Ameliorate Psychiatric Disorders?

There has been a recent and notable increase in the non-medical use of new psychoactive substances (NPS), or "designer drugs." Unlike classic drugs of abuse, many NPS were initially developed for research purposes. In this podcast, Drs. Michael Baumann and Nora Volkow discuss the complexities of working with these substances and how, given their genesis, research with NPS could be considered "dual use;" or, potentially utilized for both beneficial and malicious purposes.
www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Abuse of New Psychoactive Substances: Threats and Solutions

"Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention," the 2016 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, focuses on advances in our understanding of the impact of stress on the brain: From pathology to circuits, treatment to prevention. Emerging data from genetics, epigenetics, neural circuit and intergenerational models, animal models, and neuroimaging all suggest that stress affects the brain in a variety of dynamic and often long-lasting ways. The effects of these processes on developmental risk for pathology are particularly notable.
www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention

Take a walk though any landscape in Scotland, and there's a story to be uncovered - of human lives, and the impact we've had on the land around us. Join Iain Stewart as he walks through some of Scotland's most intriguing landscapes, guided by people who live and work in them, to uncover tales of how we've exploited, celebrated and enjoyed Scotland's forests, hills, lochs, glens and shores.



In this programme, Trees, Iain visits Ariundle oakwoods, in Sunart. They're a lush green space, full of plant and animal life. But they're also incredibly rich in archaeology. Iain seeks out the stories of human and natural history the old oak trees have witnessed, discovering that if it wasn't for the demands of 18th century industry, the woods wouldn't be here today. Published on October 25, 2010.

Scotland's Trees - Ariundle oakwoods

For the 850 thousand families in the UK living with dementia, the simple daily practise of eating a meal can escalate into a dreaded challenge. Spurred on by a listener's personal experience, Sheila Dillon meets people living with dementia to ask how their relationship with food has changed. 

American food writer Paula Wolfert has written award winning books on the food of the Mediterranean. In 2012, she was diagnosed with a form of dementia and after careful research she transformed her daily diet. As Paula prepares to release what will be her final book, Sheila speaks to her about what food means now. Sheila also meets James Ashwell, a young entrepreneur whose online business venture was inspired by caring for his mother who loved to cook. 

Sheila hears from Professor Margaret Rayman, who heads the nutritional medicine course at the University of Surrey. Her book 'Healthy Eating to Reduce the Risk of Dementia' draws on hundreds of academic papers into nutrition and the brain. And in an area which still requires so much research, Sheila speaks to an American academic embarking on what could be the 'gold standard' study into how what we eat affects the development of dementia. 

Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced by Clare Salisbury

Photo credit: Alison van Diggelen. Published on October 3, 2016.

Diet and Dementia

Creative Britain: Laurie Taylor explores its rise and fall with the British historian, Robert Hewison, who provides an assessment of the cultural policies of New Labour and the Coalition. Why has culture failed to escape class? Also, a new Sexology exhibition prompts an analysis of the changing field of sex research. Kaye Wellings, Professor of Sexual & Reproductive Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, charts a history involving book burning, scandal and shame.
Producer: Jayne Egerton. Published on November 26, 2014.

Creative Britain - Sexology

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski. Published on February 25, 2015.

Free Thinking -  Social Identity

Patrick Vallance is something of a rare breed - a game-keeper turned poacher; an academic who has moved over into industry. And not just any industry, but the pharmaceutical industry. At the time, Patrick Vallance was professor of Clinical Pharmacology and head of the Department of Medicine at University College London. A pioneer of research into some of the body’s key regulatory systems, he had also been publicly critical of big Pharma for “funding studies more helpful to marketing than to advancing clinical care”. So what made him go over to "the other side"?



His involvement with the industry was limited until one evening in 2006 when he was asked a question over a dinner, a question that would be pivotal to his life and career. 



Today, Patrick is head of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies with annual revenues in excess of £20 billion and nearly a 100,000 employees worldwide. Whilst GSK is no stranger to scandal, since he joined, Patrick has attempted to tackle the culture of secrecy that pervades the industry. He has since reshaped the way GSK carries out its research and has been behind several radical initiatives in global healthcare, to produce a more collaborative approach to tackling major diseases like malaria.



(Photo: Coloured pills) Published on November 16, 2015.

Problems of Developing Drugs

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had potential to be one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, yet she was also one of the most vulnerable. In France, when she was the teenage bride to their future king, she was seen as rightful heir to the thrones of England and Ireland, as well as Queen of Scotland and one day of France, which would have been an extraordinary union. She was widowed too young, though and, a Catholic returning to Protestant Scotland, she struggled to overcome rivalries in her own country. She fled to Protestant England, where she was implicated in plots to overthrow Elizabeth, and it was Elizabeth herself who signed Mary's death warrant. 


With 

David Forsyth
Principal Curator, Scottish Medieval-Early Modern Collections at National Museums Scotland

Anna Groundwater
Teaching Fellow in Historical Skills and Methods at the University of Edinburgh

And

John Guy
Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson. Jan 19, 2017

Mary, Queen of Scots

Tony Robbins SELF DISCIPLINE (The Best Motivation Ever)

The recreational drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, is particularly popular in social settings and raves, in large part because of how socially connected it makes the users feel. It’s being studied for use in psychotherapy —there’s a phase III clinical trial for the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. What’s clear is that the drug affects how users experience social interactions. But there are questions: Does the drug make positive social interactions feel better, or reduce the negative feelings associated with negative social interactions?

Related link -
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0402-z

Brainpod - Effects of MDMA on attention to positive social cues and pleasantness of affective touch

It’s widely understood that early life adversity has an impact on mental illness and cognitive problems later in life. There are theories as to the mechanisms of how this   works, but it’s difficult to test in humans. Tallie Baram is a professor of neurophysiology and biophysics at the UC Irvine department of pediatrics. And she co-authored a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology with Ali Mortazavi, professor of  developmental and cell biology at UC Irvine. Dr. Baram says that imaging studies show changes in brain structure and circuits, and cognitive and emotional tests also demonstrate a change in function. But it’s difficult to study the mechanism, to try to understand how this is happening, because scientists can’t take samples of brain tissue to determine how and when genes are expressed.

Related Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0496-3

Intra-individual changes in methylome profiles: an epigenetic ‘scar’ of early-life adversity?

It’s known that there’s a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a higher rate of opioid abuse. What isn’t understood, though, is what that relationship is. Does PTSD cause people to turn to opioids in particular among all the potential drugs of abuse, or is there something about opioid use that makes users particularly sensitive to trauma? This is just what Michael Fanselow, professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments at UCLA, and his colleagues investigated for a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Have a listen to learn more!

Related article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0559-5

Chronic opioid pretreatment potentiates the sensitization of fear learning by trauma

A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, in which 28 healthy subjects, men and women, take doses of LSD, MDMA, amphetamines, and a placebo over four different sessions. Dr. Liechti says this blinding is important; in other studies, participants either have taken a drug or a placebo and can tell when they’re taking the drug. But in this case they don’t know which drug they’re taking, which allows the effects of the drugs to be compared against each other. Take a listen to find out more!

Distinct acute effects of LSD, MDMA, and D-amphetamine in healthy subjects

Over the past decades, there’s clearly been a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend online using social networking sites. For instance, Facebook and Instagram have literally billions of users. At the same time, there’s been a rise in mental health issues for young people from teens through their mid 20s. The rise in these issues has been seen particularly for Millenials and the I generation, both of which grew up with increased access to and use of social networking sites. As a result, some have drawn the conclusion that perhaps the two are linked, and the rise in mental health issues is linked causally to the increase in time spent online, and so treatment should involve reducing social networking use. Dr. Kiara Timpano, associate professor at the University of Miami department of psychology, and Dr. Courtney Beard, co-director of the clinical research program in behavioral health at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, reviewed the literature.

Brainpod - Social networking and mental health

‘Mental health in the community’ is a series of six podcasts brought to you by the Mental Health Foundation and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. 

What is this series about? 
From 2016 to 2019 the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust ran the Mental Health Fellowships programme, funding individuals to travel abroad to learn more about how community-based solutions are being created to respond to some of today’s most pressing mental health challenges. 

The Mental Health Foundation was the expert partner in this programme, helping to shape its aims, select the successful candidates and provide mentoring to the successful Fellows. In total, 59 Churchill Fellows were chosen to investigate best practice in 18 countries and bring back new evidence and ideas to create positive change in their profession, practice and communities in the UK.  

This series of podcasts distils the key findings from this rich body of learning, and makes recommendations for policy and practice in the UK. Each episode focuses on an aspect of the Mental Health Fellowships’ overarching theme ‘community-based solutions’. There are also corresponding briefings for each of the categories below, available at www.mentalhealth.org.uk or www.wcmt.org.uk.

Episode 5: Trauma and Adversity: trauma-informed care 

Who’s on the podcast today? 
Trevor Barnes: Host, freelance journalist and BBC radio presenter.  

Dr Karen Treisman: a clinical psychologist, trainer, and author, travelled to the USA to research international approaches to integrating adversity, culturally, and trauma-informed and responsive principles at a system-wide and organisational level.

Daniel Johnson: forensic psychologist and service manager at Kibble Education and Care Centre, a specialist provider of child and youth care services, travelled to the USA, Norway and Sweden to investigate how trauma-informed principles have been turned into tangible practice in young people’s residential care services.

What is the episode about? 
This episode features details of a number of leading trauma-informed organisations delivering services in a variety of community-based contexts abroad.

We hear about Jasper Mountain, a large care, education and treatment centre in the Oregon forest, initially opened by a husband and wife who were practising therapists frustrated by the systems in which they worked. The main residential building is a castle, with a keep, large central hall and even a drawbridge. It has been built like this as children had said this was the structure they would prefer and in which they would feel most safe. 

Need support?
	If you need someone to talk to then Samaritans are available on 116 123 (UK) for free, 24/7. They are there to talk to, listen and they won't judge or tell you what to do. 
	C.A.L.M.: National helpline for men to talk about any troubles they are feeling. Call 0800 58 58 58 (UK). They are available 5pm-midnight 365 days a year.
	For support in a crisis, Text Shout to 85258. If you’re experiencing a personal crisis, are unable to cope and need support.  Shout can help with urgent issues such as: Suicidal thoughts, abuse or assault, self-harm, bullying, relationship challenges.

Trauma & adversity - Trauma-informed care / Mental health in the community

Welcome to the Springer Nature Soundcloud page! Here you will find several podcasts from our journals across a range of scientific subjects, including Gene Pod, ModPath Chat, Pediapod, Hereditypod and Brainpod.