Affecting up to 1 in 3 people each year, mental health conditions are as prevalent as their causes are intriguing. As one of the principal causes of disability today, mental illness represents a significant burden on economies and lives worldwide, costing £70-£105 billion per year in England alone. Given the impact mental health conditions present to individuals, their caregivers and the wider society, as well as recent reports of deficits in access to psychological therapies within the NHS, ever more significant effort is being put into research on the biological basis of mental disorders. A major and increasingly acknowledged frontier in this field sits at the intersection between our brain and its environment, our genes and the myriad of external stimuli that condition their expression.

Join The Biochemical Society at the British Science Festival for a discussion on this “hot topic” with our event “Mental Health: All in the Mind?”.

This event will be presented and chaired by Claudia Hammond, broadcaster and presenter of All in the Mind on BBC Radio 4, a programme that explores the limits and potential of the human mind. As a psychologist who is passionate about communicating what psychological research has to teach us, Claudia will steer the dialogue within a positive, life-affirming and destigmatising environment, bringing the dialogue into a productive discussion on the nature of mental distress and the better – and worst – ways in which we as a society view it.

With the scientific contributions of Professor Louise Arseneault (Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London), and Dr Esther Walton (Lecturer at the University of Bath), the entire terrain from molecules to the brain will be covered. The panel will also have the additional participation of George David Hodgson, mental health campaigner, winner of the British Fashion start-up Awards 2016 and founder of the fashion brand ‘Maison de Choup’, born out of his experiences of severe anxiety.

This proposed session will showcase how the latest neuroscience and psychiatry research is providing ever more detailed glimpses into the biological causes of mental disorders, and open an avenue of discussion with the public on the ways that genetics and epigenetics are reframing the nature versus nurture debate, raising awareness of the biology and prevalence of these issues while destigmatizing them.

About the speakers

Professor Louise Arseneault:
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/louise-arseneault(3f561fec-1976-4596-bb81-c8c4c25a6036).html

Claudia Hammond:
http://www.claudiahammond.com/

George David Hodgson:
https://www.georgedavidhodgson.com/

Dr Esther Walton:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/social-community-medicine/people/esther-walton/index.html

British Science Festival event code: OC28.
Date: Friday 13 September 2019
Time: 13.00 – 14.00
Venue: Zeeman Building MS.02, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7HP