National Institutes of Health

Faculty Member, Child Psychiatry Branch

Other Affiliations: King's College London, Department of Psychosis Studies

Associate Professor in Psychology, Lindemann Trust Scholar

Thesis Title: Vulnerability Indicators in Psychosis - A Family Study

About

Dr Nora S Vyas, PhD, CPsychol, CSci, AFBPsS, GCAP

Senior Lecturer, Lindemann Trust Fellow, and Fulbright Scholar.

Email: nora.vyas@nih.gov

I completed my PhD in Psychiatry and Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London in 2008. My PhD focused on investigating the effect of susceptibility genes of schizophrenia on cognitive functioning in early-onset schizophrenia (EOS; onset before adulthood) patients and their first-degree relatives. I am interested in integrating genetics, cognition and neuroimaging techniques to gain better insights into the pathophysiology of early onset schizophrenia and those with a genetic predisposition of schizophrenia.

AWARDS
In recognition of my work in early onset schizophrenia, I have been fortunate to receive national/international awards early in my academic career, including: Young Researcher Award (2008) at the Third International Conference on Schizophrenia Research (Chennai, India), Young Scientist Award (2009) at the Ninth World Congress of Biological Psychiatry (Paris, France), the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award (2010-11) by the US-UK Fulbright Commission, Asian Achievers Awards (AAA) Gold Award for Achievement in Healthcare (2010), and the Black History Month Fulbright Travel Award (2011). More recently, I was awarded the Lindemann Trust Fellowship (2011-12) by the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth.


NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS
I am Associate Editor of Frontiers in Child and Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry. I am Editorial Board Member for World Journal of Psychiatry, Open Psychiatry, and Medical Hypotheses. I am also a reviewer of book proposals and research grants in the field of psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience. I am an anonymous scientific reviewer for international journals (see below). I am also an executive committee member of the British Indian Psychiatric Association (BIPA), involved in organising the scientific agenda for the Annual conference. I was closely involved in the development of the BIPA Youth Forum, which was launched on 3rd Sept 2011. BIPA YSF Webpage: http://www.bipa.org.uk/ysf.php


CURRENT AND PREVIOUS POSITIONS

Currently, I am a Senior Lecturer in Psychology (Middlesex University), and Lindemann Trust Fellow (Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institutes of Health, MD, USA). I am studying brain oscillatory patterns in  childhood-onset schizophrenia (onset of psychotic symptoms before age 12) and their first-degree relatives, under the direction of Dr. Judith L. Rapoport, Chief, and Dr. Nitin Gogtay, Staff Clinician, Child Psychiatry Branch, NIMH. Previous: I was a research worker as an undergraduate student (June 2003-Oct 2004) and then a PhD student at the Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London (Oct 2004-Oct 2008). This was followed by a postdoctoral position in early intervention services in Birmingham. This was followed by a Visiting Lecturer and Module Leader at City University London in 2009, which involved teaching Abnormal and Clinical psychology, providing post-lecture tutorials to final-year undergraduate psychology students (~90 students). This was followed by a visiting appointment at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare Trust [January-July 2010].

I was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award (2010-11) to conduct research on neural oscillatory patterns in childhood-onset schizophrenia at the Child Psychiatry Branch, NIMH. This was followed by receiving the Lindemann Trust fellowship to continue support for my research.


TEACHING DUTIES
I teach the following Undergraduate and Postgraduate modules at Middlesex University

Undergraduate programme:
1. BSc Biology and Cognitive Psychology (2nd year)
2. BSc Mental Health, Well-Being, and Consciousness (final year)

Masters programme:
3. MSc Research Methods in Applied Psychology
4. MSc Advanced Dissertation in Psychology

* I am a dissertation supervisor for 7 BSc (Hons) Psychology students, and 5 MSc students on research topics such as cognitive neuroscience, social psychology, and mental health.


RESEARCH INTERESTS
My main research expertise are childhood-onset (onset <13) adolescent-onset (onset <18) schizophrenia, schizophrenia/ psychotic disorders, endophenotypes, neurocognition, and molecular genetics. I have also expanded my interests to neuroimaging including functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). I am fully trained in the theory and application of several neuroimaging tools, such as FreeSurfer and AFNI (SPM2 equivalent in the UK).

INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIP (to date):
2011: Associate Editor of Frontiers in Child and Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry (http://www.frontiersin.org/Child_and_Neurodevelopmental_Psychiatry/about)
2011: Research and Ethics Committee Member, MDX.
2011: Editorial Board Member for World Journal of Psychiatry.
2011: Editorial Board Member for Medical Hypotheses.
2010: Editorial Board Member for Open Psychiatry Journal (http://bentham.org/open/topj/).
2010: Executive Committee Member for the scientific steering group and establishment of youth forum, British Indian Psychiatric Association (www.bipa.org.uk).
2010: Continental Who's Who.
2009: British Psychological Society (www.bps.org.uk).
2009: British Association of Psychopharmacology (www.bap.org.uk).
2007: Schizophrenia Research Forum.
2007: British Indian Psychiatric Association.

ANONYMOUS PEER-REVIEWER FOR THE FOLLOWING JOURNALS:

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
Psychiatry Research
Schizophrenia Research
Schizophrenia Bulletin
Journal of Psychiatric Research
Child Neuropsychology
British Journal of Psychiatry
General Hospital Psychiatry
NeuroImage
Medical Hypotheses


BOOK CHAPTERS

1. Tsapakis EM, Curran S, Ohlsen RI, Vyas NS, Aitchison KJ (2011). Pharmacogenetics in Psychiatry. In: Maitland-van der Zee, A-H and Daly A (eds), Pharmacogenetics and Individualized Therapy. John Wiley.

2. Gogtay N, Vyas NS. Gray matter dysfunction and psychopathology. Invited.


PUBLICATIONS (In Press):

Vyas NS, Puri BK. Evidence of an association of the Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor Val66Met polymorphism and general intellectual ability in schizophrenia. In Press.

Contact Information