Wolfson Centre Lectures - Vulnerability to stressors, reinforcement learning and depression

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‘Vulnerability to stressors, reinforcement learning and depression’

Professor Glyn Lewis, Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at University College London

Environmental stressors both in early life and later are associated with depressive illness and this relationship could be causal.

Response to stressors though varies a great deal and understanding more about how this vulnerability (the opposite of resilience) varies could help us develop new interventions for prevention.

Professor Lewis will argue for a hypothesis that the brain mechanisms that underpin reinforcement learning in both animals and humans could provide an explanation for vulnerability and how early events in life can still have an impact on mental health many years later.