Mood Disorder Centre Opens

The £3.6 million Sir Henry Wellcome Building for Mood Disorder Research, near to the Queens building, was opened on the 29th March 2012.

It was opened by the director of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Mark Walport.

It will specialise in mental health issues such as depression and bipolar disorder. Up to 400 people a year could receive treatment through clinical research held at the centre. Their research aims to improve our understanding of mental health, to translate this into therapy and improve access to these new therapies.

1 in 4 people will experience some form of mental health problem across the course of a year. While women more likely to be affected with a mood disorder than men, suicide rates are higher amongst men.

400 people per 100,000 have been known to self-harm.

The state of the art facilities and experimental clinical research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust Capital Awards in Biomedical Science initiative. The centre works in partnership with the NHS and Exeter University.

Inside the Mood Disorder Centre are both individual and group treatment rooms with built in audio-visual recording. A virtual reality laboratory, which includes the capability to conduct research into influencing emotional regulation, is another facility at the centre.

The Mood Disorders Centre was founded in 2004 and is set to become a world leader in psychological research. Research by the Centre has significantly affected national guidelines on the treatment of depression.

This includes the 2008 programme aimed at improving access to psychological therapies which has helped reduce waiting times from months to weeks, with 900,000 more people being treated.

121 million people across the world are estimated to suffer from depression, let alone the numbers of people affected by other mental health issues.

Alongside the opening of the Centre, Exeter University has recently launched the UK’s first Applied Psychology (Clinical) degree which carried the weight of accreditation from the British Psychological Society.

If you would like to participate in any studies email [email protected] or call 01392 264645.

If you would like more information on depression and anxiety disorders, please follow these links:

Student Depression
Mind
University of Exeter MDC
Student Depression – Other Useful Websites