Exeter Psychedelic Studies
Alex Shaw

A.D.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk

https://linktr.ee/alexandershaw

Alex Shaw

Alex is a neuroscientist working in computational psychiatry, currently a lecturer at the University of Exeter. His research aims to unpick the pathophysiology of psychiatric disease using multimodal imaging (M/EEG, MRI, PET), pharmaco-imaging, psychedelic and anaesthetic drugs, machine learning, and computational modelling.

Alex is interested in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in psychiatric disorder as well as building mechanistic and predictive dynamical models of the brain under psychedelics. He is currently working on several studies using psychedelics:

  • The BAM study – with Prof Celia Morgan’s Psychopharmacology group in Exeter.
  • Clinical trials of the effects of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin on long term potentiation (LTP) in depression – with Prof Suresh Muthukumaraswamy and Dr Rachael Sumner in Auckland.
  • Clinically predictive models of LTP as biomarkers of ketamine response – with Viktoria Galuba and Prof Claus Normann in Germany.
  • Modelling sleep-EEG to predict outcomes and prognosis in people at high risk of psychosis – (“the sleep detectives”) with Prof Matt Jones in Bristol.
  • Converge: clinically predictive models of outcomes for CNV carriers based on multiscale human recordings including personalised organoids and in-vivo measures – with Prof Jeremy Hall (Cardiff), Prof Karl Friston (UCL) et al.