Serotonergic Effects on Cognition Dr Christelle Langley (Cambridge) presents her work on understanding the long-term effects of serotonin modulation on the brain and behaviour. Hosted by Prof Beth Jefferies.
Event details
Abstract
While previous research has primarily examined the acute and sub-chronic effects of SSRIs, there is a significant gap in understanding the long-term impact of these medications on cognition in healthy individuals. Our presentation will cover three key studies examining chronic escitalopram administration in healthy volunteers. The first is a behavioural study using a number of cognitive tasks, the second a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of reward learning, and the third a PET study utilizing UCBJ to understand the effect of chronic escitalopram on synaptic density. We will discuss how chronic administration of escitalopram influences various cognitive domains, including decision-making, cognitive flexibility, and learning from feedback. Additionally, we will consider important methodological considerations and interpretative challenges when studying serotonergic effects on cognition. Finally, we will outline the broader implications of these findings, particularly for clinical treatments of neuropsychiatric disorders, and propose future directions for research to better understand the long-term effects of serotonin modulation on the brain and behaviour.
About the speaker
Dr Christelle Langley is a Cognitive Neuroscientist and a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. She received her PhD from the University of Bristol in 2019. She joined Professor Barbara Sahakian’s lab in early 2019. She has since been involved in a number of projects and is gaining a national and international reputation in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, psychiatry and psychopharmacology. She has a number of peer reviewed publications in high quality journals such as the Nature Medicine, Lancet Neurology, the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine and Neuropsychopharmacology. Google Scholar credits her with an h-index of 19 and 1109 citations.
Dr. Langley is a dedicated science communicator, having co-authored over 25 articles for The Conversation with nearly 4 million readers. Her research has been featured in The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian. She regularly appears on radio shows like The Naked Scientists and BBC Cambridgeshire. She also appeared on BBC Three’s Planet Sex and has recently co-authored a popular science book Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life.