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Michael Browning

@mikebrowning

Researcher and psychiatrist in Oxford

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10.01.2024
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Latest posts by Michael Browning @mikebrowning

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A Ketogenic Diet for Treatment-Resistant Depression This randomized clinical trial assesses the effect of a ketogenic diet on mental health outcomes in individuals with treatment-resistant depression.

Just out today, the keto diet showed a (modest) benefit in treatment resistant depression, when compared to a pretty reasonable control! jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

04.02.2026 19:24 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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RA jobs in Oxford working on a Wellcome Trust funded grant. Neuroimaging, neurostimulation, computational modelling-- what's not to like!

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

19.01.2026 12:57 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Antidepressant treatment shouldn't be a guessing game. RELMED is working towards using advanced research to predict which medication is most likely to help each person along their individual path to recovery.

Postdoctoral research position in #ComputationalPsychiatry and #EEG as part of relmed.ac.uk trial testing reinforcement learning as biomarker for antidepressant treatment response. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @mikebrowning.bsky.social @relmed.bsky.social

21.12.2025 21:40 πŸ‘ 32 πŸ” 29 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

These posts are live now! Oxford is a great place to work. Do apply if you'd like to apply neurostimulatory techniques to understand symptoms.

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

11.12.2025 10:39 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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πŸ“£πŸ”₯Thrilled to announce that 2026 Computational Psychiatry Conference will take place in New Haven, CT, btw July 14-16 -
www.cpconf.org

@robbrutledge.bsky.social @drrickadams.bsky.social @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social @docqhuys.bsky.social @clairegillan.bsky.social Sonia Bishop

More info to come soon!

21.11.2025 19:27 πŸ‘ 76 πŸ” 28 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

Thanks Charlotte!

21.11.2025 11:04 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Graphic of a head with a circle in it with arrows. Arrows suggest circle repeats itself.

Graphic of a head with a circle in it with arrows. Arrows suggest circle repeats itself.

Repetitive negative thoughts will be investigated using a range of cutting-edge brain science techniques as part of a new study led by the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford and funded by Wellcome @wellcometrust.bsky.social πŸ‘‡
tinyurl.com/364es88k

20.11.2025 11:41 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

There are 3 Oxford-based post doc positions for this Wellcome Trust project that will be advertised soon!

If you have experinece in neurostimulation (tms/tus) and/or modelling of cogneuro data in humans do contact one of us (me, @mkflugge.bsky.social @lilweb.bsky.social, Jacinta OShea) to discuss!

20.11.2025 12:21 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 3
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Cost-effectiveness of pramipexole augmentation for acute phase and maintenance therapy of treatment-resistant depression compared to placebo augmentation: economic evaluation of the PAX-D randomised c... Pramipexole augmentation of antidepressant treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) has been shown to improve symptom burden over 12 weeks b…

Cost effectiveness of pramipexole for treatment resistant depression!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

17.11.2025 13:37 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Efficacy and target engagement of dopamine agonist pramipexole for anhedonic depression - the PRIME-PRAXOL randomized controlled trial Here, we examined the efficacy and target engagement of dopamine agonist pramipexole in treating a cross-diagnostic sample of mood disorders characterized by severe anhedonia. Patients with major depr...

Interesting new study of pramipexole in anhedonic low mood in mdd, bipolar and dysthymia. Some cool mechanistic outcomes: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...

07.11.2025 21:59 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Really interesting, brief ideas paper. Clearly relevant to treatment research-- the mechanism by which you leave an illness state is unlikely to just be the opposite of the mechanism by which you entered it (can see how this might apply to e.g. SSRIs in depression).

31.10.2025 11:09 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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β€˜I wish I had taken part sooner’: how a medical trial transformed a young person’s life Exclusive: Gulliver Waite signed up after antidepressants and talking therapies failed to alleviate clinical depression

Gulliver Waite took part in the PAX-D trial testing Pramipexole for treatment resistant depression @ox.ac.uk. He told @theguardian.com how being part of the study made a difference to his life.

πŸ‘‰ Gulliver's story
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

πŸ‘‰ The findings www.psych.ox.ac.uk/news/parkins...

23.10.2025 14:16 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Really lovely story from one of our participants in the recent PAX-D study. If you are interested in the results of the study, you can find them here: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

20.10.2025 16:27 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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β€˜I wish I took part sooner’: how a medical trial transformed a young person’s life Exclusive: Gulliver Waite signed up after antidepressants and talking therapies failed to alleviate clinical depression

β€˜I wish I took part sooner’: how a medical trial transformed a young person’s life

20.10.2025 09:48 πŸ‘ 55 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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Pramipexole augmentation for the acute phase of treatment-resistant, unipolar depression: a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomised trial in the UK In this trial involving participants with treatment-resistant depression, pramipexole augmentation of antidepressant treatment, at a target dose of 2Β·5 mg, demonstrated a reduction in symptoms relativ...

Hello, in case you are interested, the study is complete and the paper is published here: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

20.10.2025 16:26 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Curious about how scientists measure brain activity through EEG? Swipe to read more! ⚑️

24.09.2025 15:32 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Depression can affect the mind, body and daily life in ways you might not expect.

🧠Swipe to learn the key signs and symptoms – and why recognising them matters.
#Depression #Mentalhealth #Research

15.08.2025 14:08 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

New preprint alert with @mikebrowning.bsky.social
and Chamith Halahakoon!
People have been using computer-based reinforcement learning tasks with affect probes. But to what extent do they reflect real-life affective experience? We tested this with 3 weeks of EMA + RL tasks in 339 participants.

22.09.2025 23:06 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Comparative efficacy of antidepressant augmentation with amantadine vs pramipexole in treatment-resistant unipolar depression: A randomised controlled trial Augmentation strategies for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) are limited, with strongest evidence for atypical antipsychotics. Given emerging insi…

Pramipexole vs. quetiapine vs. amantadine in TRD. Interesting open label, short term RCT using a surprisingly low dose (I suspect that the reported dose of 37.5mg of pramipexole is a typo and it should be 0.375mg)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

16.07.2025 15:18 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Incidence and Nature of Antidepressant Discontinuation Symptoms This systematic review and meta-analysis examines the presence and incidence of discontinuation symptoms in individuals who stop taking antidepressants.

V important meta-analysis doi.org/10.1001/jama...: Discontinuation symptoms 1 week post stopping antidepressants was below the threshold for clinically significant discontinuation syndrome. Later worse mood is likely depression relapse @jfhayes.bsky.social @sameerjauhar.bsky.social.

09.07.2025 22:54 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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🎊Recently, colleagues from across the @NIHRresearch Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH-TRC) gathered for a celebration of progress and partnership in mental health research.

➑️ oxfordhealthbrc.nihr.ac.uk/nihr-mental-...

04.07.2025 08:53 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis All antidepressants were more efficacious than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder. Smaller differences between active drugs were found when placebo-controlled trials were included in the...

It is generally higher than you see with ssris. This paper reports the odds of dropping out due to intolerance for lots of antidepressants vs placebo (page 154 of appendix). By comparison, the or in our study was 4.4.
www.thelancet.com/article/S014...

30.06.2025 13:47 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks Rick

30.06.2025 07:44 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

GRATEFUL to @nihr.bsky.social for funding this work and @oxhealthbrc.bsky.social for support.
Pramipexole is clearly not a first line treatment for depression, but these results demonstrate that it can be a useful option for our most treatment-resistant patients! 6/6

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

TRANSPARENCY: There are challenges to using pramipexole: 20% stopped pramipexole due to side effects vs 5% placebo. Most common: nausea, headache, dizziness, sleep problems. 5/6

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

HYPOTHESIS: We targeted dopamine D2/3 receptors with pramipexole instead of the usual serotonergic approach. Dopamine is crucial for reward/pleasure - and anhedonia (can't feel pleasure) is often what persists even after other depression symptoms improve. 4/6

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Background: About 30% of our patients don't respond to first-line antidepressants. We recruited people with chronic depression (median 8.5 years) who had tried 3-4 medications without success. These are the patients we struggle to help most. 3/6

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

FINDINGS: In our randomized controlled trial (n=150), patients receiving pramipexole showed:
β€’ 6.4-point reduction in QIDS scores vs 2.4 for placebo (p<0.0001)
β€’ 44% response rate vs 16% placebo
β€’ 28% remission vs 8% placebo Effect size d=0.87 - this is substantial! 2/6

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Pramipexole augmentation for the acute phase of treatment-resistant, unipolar depression: a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomised trial in the UK In this trial involving participants with treatment-resistant depression, pramipexole augmentation of antidepressant treatment, at a target dose of 2Β·5 mg, demonstrated a reduction in symptoms relativ...

Our new study published in TheLancetPsych! We found that pramipexole augmentation substantially reduced depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant depression over 48 weeks of treatment. This is an important advance in how we treat depression! 1/6
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

30.06.2025 03:54 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Current vacancies

Delighted to announce this position www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/current-vaca.... It's part of the Mental Health Mission Mood Disorders Research Clinic Network, aiming to support clinical trials in mood disorders in the UK. Should be very interesting! oxfordhealthbrc.nihr.ac.uk/mhm/mood-dis...

24.06.2025 20:59 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0