PhD Studentship in Child Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Supervisors

Professor Gráinne McAlonan
Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience
Email: Grainne.McAlonan@kcl.ac.uk
Website: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/grainne.mcalonan

Doctor Nicolaas Puts
Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience
Email:  nicolaas.puts@kcl.ac.uk
Website:  https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/nicolaas.puts

Project Description

Background:  Brain development during the perinatal period represents a critical and delicate period which is shaped by the intrauterine environment. Indirect epidemiological and animal evidence links prenatal exposure to maternal immune activation to a range of neurodevelopmental and mental health difficulties in the offspring. Given the large number of people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic, including expectant mothers, in this work, we will directly test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to maternal infection will influence brain and behavioural development in children who were in utero during the pandemic. Moreover, increased rates of stress, anxiety and isolation during this period may also affect these irrespective of active infection. By understanding the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on brain and mental health in children, we hope that this work will positively impact our care for expectant mother and their babies, in pandemic and non-pandemic settings.

In this project, you will investigate brain structure and function in children who were born during the pandemic, using a variety of neuroimaging methods, in addition to the assessments of neurocognitive skills and socio-emotional development. You will employ novel methods for deep phenotyping to examine how these are potentially impacted by exposure to the pandemic. Specifically, we would like to understand how verbal and non-verbal communication in children may have been affected as lockdown and minimal human contact postnatally may have served as an additional environmental ‘hit’ for the development of communication skills.

This PhD project is part of the Brain Health in Gen2020 study, which employs public and patient involvement and engagement strategies throughout, in the form of research focus groups, educational programmes and engagement with the local population.

Objectives

Year 1:  Design, piloting, quality checking and preliminary analysis of data collection.

Year 2:  In-depth analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child brain and wellbeing, focusing on communication indices and associated brain regions and white matter tracks.

Year 3:  Continued analysis, including advanced statistical modelling and individualised statistical approaches, write-up.

Planned skills training

• Recruitment and data collection
• Neurocognitive testing
• MRI acquisition and analysis
• EEG and eye tracking acquisition and analysis
• Statistical analysis

Key publications

1. McAlonan, G. M., Murphy, D. G., & Edwards, A. D. (2020). Multidisciplinary: Research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(7), e35.

2. Gale-Grant, O., Chew, A., Falconer, S., França, L. G., Fenn-Moltu, S., Hadaya, L., ... & Batalle, D. (2024). Clinical, socio-demographic, and parental correlates of early autism traits in a community cohort of toddlers. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 8393.

3. Sethna, V., Siew, J., Gudbrandsen, M., Pote, I., Wang, S., Daly, E., ... & McAlonan, G. (2021). Maternal depression during pregnancy alters infant subcortical and midbrain volumes. Journal of Affective Disorders, 291, 163-170.

4. Mirheidari, B., Bittar, A., Cummins, N., Downs, J., Fisher, H. L., & Christensen, H. (2024). Automatic detection of expressed emotion from Five-Minute Speech Samples: Challenges and opportunities. Plos one, 19(3), e0300518.

5. Parlatini, V., Frangou, L., Zhang, S., Epstein, S., Morris, A., Grant, C., ... & Downs, J. (2024). Emotional and behavioral outcomes among youths with mental disorders during the first Covid lockdown and school closures in England: a large clinical population study using health care record integrated surveys. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 59(1), 175-186.

6. Wickersham, A., Carter, B., Jewell, A., Ford, T., Stewart, R., & Downs, J. (2023). Association between depression diagnosis and educational attainment trajectories: an historical cohort study using linked data. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 64(11), 1617-1627.

Award

Funding is available for:

• One 3-year PhD studentship to commence February 2026.

The award covers:

• Full Home rate tuition fees;
• A stipend (currently £21,237 per year);
• A contribution towards training, conference attendance and research costs.

Overseas applicants may apply but will need to cover the difference in tuition fees.

Entry Requirements

The programme is very competitive and applicants must have, or be predicted to obtain at least a 2.1 or equivalent overseas qualification in a relevant science subject. 

Students who do not meet the above primary criteria may apply if they satisfy the following conditions:

• A 2.2 BSc degree and a MSc in a relevant subject with Merit or Distinction.
• A 2.1 or higher non-science first degree (BA) and a MSc in a relevant subject with Merit or Distinction.

English Language

Applicants for these studentships must meet the King's College London Band D English language requirements.  Any offer you are made will be conditional upon you meeting these requirements prior to enrolment.

Further information is available on the King's College London English language entry requirements page. 

Strengthening our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

In line with the NIHR's national strategy we aim to:

• foster an inclusive environment
• engage the talents and energy of diverse people in all areas of our work
• improve the relevance and quality of our research

To do this we will widen access for greater diversity and inclusion of applicants across under-represented groups.  This includes, but is not restricted to gender and sexuality, diverse racial and ethnic groups, people from different geographical regions of varied socio-economic backgrounds, people with disabilities or lived experience of mental health issues.

People with lived experience of neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions are actively encouraged to apply.

You will benefit from the wide range of training and support offered by King's College London to its postgraduate research students.

Maudsley BRC students are members of the NIHR Academy and have access to resources and training opportunities provided nationally through the Academy and wider NIHR infrastructure.