Division of Psychiatry Division of Psychiatry
Key researchers

Dr Jess Sussmann

Jess Sussmann is a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellow in the Division of Psychiatry.

Jess Sussmann
  • Jess Sussmann
  • Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellow
  • Division of Psychiatry
Email:

As a part-time Consultant Rehabilitation Psychiatrist with NHS Borders, she also works with a community and in-patient team specialising in severe and enduring mental illness throughout the Scottish Borders.

Background

Dr Sussmann graduated in Medicine from Edinburgh University in 2000 and completed basic Psychiatry training on the South East Scotland training scheme. Prior to becoming a Wellcome Research Fellow, she was a Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry in Edinburgh.

Research interests

The development of objective tools for risk prediction, diagnosis and prognostic indicators would hasten improvements the management of major psychiatric disorders. Dr Sussmann is particularly interested in brain imaging research in Bipolar Disorder and high risk populations.

Her current research involve using structural and functional brain imaging to examine the neural correlates of emotion processing that may differentiate patients with bipolar disorder from their relatives, specifically looking at reward and facial emotion paradigms.

She is also involved in a large prospective study of young people at genetic high-risk for bipolar disorder. Their most recent approaches to learn more about the disorder (in addition to structural and functional imaging) have included genetic imaging and effective connectivity.

Selected publications

Reduced white matter integrity in healthy individuals carrying the A-allele at DISC1 Ser704Cys
Mol Psychiatry. 2011 Jul;16(7):685. PMID: 21697853
Sprooten E, Sussmann JE, Moorhead TW, Whalley HC, Ffrench-Constant C, Blumberg HP, Bastin ME, Hall J, Lawrie SM, McIntosh AM
White Matter Abnormalities in Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia Detected Using Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Bipolar Disord. 2009;11(1):11-8. PMID:19133962
Sussmann JE, Lymer GKS, McKirdy J, Moorhead TWJ, Maniega SM, Job D, Hall J, Bastin ME, Johnstone EC, Lawrie SM, McIntosh AM (2009)
The neural basis of familial risk and temperamental variation in individuals at high risk of bipolar disorder
Biol Psych 2011.PMID:21601834 (ahead of publication)
Whalley HC, Sussmann J, Chakirova G, Mukerjee P, Peel A, McKirdy J, Hall J, Johnstone EC, Lawrie SM, McIntosh AM
White matter integrity and cyclothymia in individuals at high genetic risk for bipolar disorder
Biol Psych 2011. PMID:21429475 (ahead of publication)
Sprooten E, Sussmann J, Clugston A, Moorhead TW, Bastin ME, Hall J, Johnstone EC, Lawrie SM, McIntosh AM
White matter tractography in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Dec 15;64(12):1088-92
McIntosh AM, Muñoz Maniega S, Lymer GK, McKirdy J, Hall J, Sussmann JE, Bastin ME, Clayden JD, Johnstone EC, Lawrie SM
Set shifting and reversal learning in patients with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia
Psychol Med. 2009;39 (8):1289-93. PMID:19105856
McKirdy J, Sussmann JE, Hall J, Lawrie SM, Johnstone EC, McIntosh AM (2009)
Related links

This article was published on Oct 5, 2011


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