Category: News

Members of the BDRN team were pleased to present at the 24th Annual Conference of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) 10th-12th June 2022.   Dr Katherine Gordon-Smith (University of Worcester), Dr Marisa Dias (Cardiff University) and Dr Kate Saunders (University of Oxford) all gave presentations during a symposium session titled Comorbid Borderline Personality Disorder and Traits in Read More …

Our research findings comparing mental health prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic among individuals with bipolar disorder have recently been published in the journal ‘Bipolar Disorders’. This is the first study carried out in the UK that has collected mood data both before and during the pandemic, thanks to all of the BDRN participants Read More …

Thousands of BDRN research participants across the UK have contributed data to a study recently published in the journal ‘Nature Genetics’. This international research involving around 14,000 individuals with bipolar disorder and 14,000 controls identified rare variants in a gene called AKAP11 as a risk factor for bipolar disorder. These variants are rare, occurring in a minority Read More …

What were your early experiences of having bipolar disorder? My first experience of mental ill-health was at the age of 18 years, I had lost a 19 year-old friend in a traffic accident, causing me to suffer from sleep deprivation. I was unable to concentrate and behave in a rational way. I was admitted to Read More …

Our research findings examining the interplay between sleep and mood in individuals with bipolar disorder using intensive longitudinal data have recently been published in the journal Psychological Medicine. We examined relationships between sleep and mood among 649 BDRN participants who had provided weekly self-reports of insomnia, depression and (hypo)mania symptoms using the True Colours online monitoring tool Read More …

We are delighted to let everyone know that Jo Johnson has successfully completed her PhD at the University of Worcester.  Jo is a midwife and health visitor who took time out of clinical practice to conduct research into referral pathways for women who require specialist mental health care during pregnancy and the postpartum.  She interviewed Read More …

Julia Savage one of BDRN’s longest standing Research Champions has written the following article about her involvement in the Worcestershire Health Care NHS Trust ‘Now We’re Talking’ campaign. All of us at BDRN would like to thank Julia for her ongoing support of our research. “Earlier this year Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health Care NHS Trust Read More …

Our research findings on post-partum psychosis and its association with bipolar disorder have recently been published in Lancet Psychiatry. We compared genetic vulnerability to bipolar disorder and major depression in 203 women with a history of post-partum psychosis as a first lifetime psychiatric episode, 1225 women with bipolar disorder who had given birth but had Read More …

I am currently in the final stages of my PhD at the University of Worcester, writing up my research thesis exploring the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (sometimes called emotionally unstable personality disorder) in people living with bipolar disorder. Thank you again to all the participants who took part in interviews and completed the questionnaire. Read More …

We are delighted to let everyone know that Gemma McCullough has successfully completed her PhD at the University of Worcester.  Many BDRN members will have met Gemma, or had telephone contact with her, when they participated in her research about the relationship between physical activity and mood in bipolar disorder. Gemma is now working in Read More …