Psychopharmacology Laboratory
Understanding the factors that affect individual variation in response to drugs
Yellow highlight indicates brain areas preferentially involved in ignoring. Blue highlight indicates brain areas preferentially involved in updating.
The Psychopharmacology Laboratory in the
Brain Research & Imaging Centre (BRIC)
work to understand the factors that affect individual variation in response to drugs.
100 years of Psychopharmacological research has consistently shown that the psychological effects of psychoactive compounds vary substantially across individuals.
Clinically, this is problematic because it means that while some patients may benefit from a particular medication others will not (or they might even get worse).
One of the key goals of the Psychopharmacology lab, in concert with other labs in BRIC, is to understand the factors that affect individual variation in response to drugs, such as personality, baseline cognitive performance, genetics, and baseline neurochemistry. Making substantial progress in this area will allow for medications to be given in a bespoke manner and open the door for precision medicine.