MSc Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry
King's College London

MSc project titles

Students submit a project dissertaion of between 7,500 and 10,000 words and prepare a poster of their project which is presented publicly in early September and marked by the examiners.
The following are the titles of the projects carried out by the 2012-2013 full-time students and the 2010-2012 part-time students.

Full-time
• Anterior cingulate and learning the value of actions in adults born preterm
• Processes involved in tau degradation
• A DTI tractography study of the cingulum bundle in first-episode psychosis
• Mitochondrial dynamics in experimental autoimmune neuritis
• Prediction of long-term structural and functional brain and neuropsychological alterations after brain injury in very preterm birth
• Exploring saliva as a diagnostic bio-fluid for Alzheimer’s disease
• Short white matter tracts of the parietal lobe
• Does fish oil supplementation improve memory in children suffering from ADHD?
• Life course predictors of the Personality Trait Neuroticism
• Distant and local connectivity of the temporal lobes
• Assessing novel therapeutic strategies for juvenile NCL
• Effect of mind training on attention and information processing: an electrophysiological investigation
• The mitochondrial pathways of neurodegeneration: Molecular regulation of mitophagy
• The role of DNA repair in Alzheimer's disease
• Is tri-peptidyl peptidase 1 required for neural crest development?
• Investigating tau localisation and interacting proteins
• Schizophrenia: molecular mechanisms of omega-3 supplementation
• Molecular mechanisms of synaptic deficits in Alzheimer's disease
• Salience and response inhibition networks in children with conduct disorder
• Meta-analysis of temporo-parietal studies
• The effect of tDCS with working memory training in a healthy population: Exploring a potential treatment for cognitive deficits in schizophrenia
• Methadone adherence in those ‘picking up’ from a community-based pharmacy
• Depression in schizophrenia investigated with fMRI of facial affect processing
• What is the impact of genome-wide discovered psychosis risk genes on brain structure and function? A systematic review
• Relationship between surface anatomy and underlying local connectivity of the calcarine fissure
• The influence of astrocyte-mediated inflammation on tau processing and function
• Finding Dkk1-independent beta-amyloid target genes
• Where does GSK3 sit in the "amyloid cascade"
• Comparison of gene expression biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia types
• Nicotine-induced conditioned place aversions in mice - role of α5 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors
• Characterising a new mouse model of NCL
• Olfactory processing in Drosophila
• EEG microstrates in meditators: Analysis using E-machines
• Gene regulatory networks underlying astrocyte potential
• Exploring social impairments and non-social assets in autism
• An investigation into the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on food cravings
• Transynaptic labelling of connected neurons
• The regulation of cellular growth in a neuronal versus non-neuronal cell
• Mitochondrial growth dynamics in response to spinal hypoxia
• Life imaging of a synapse-associated protein, linked to mental disorders
• Signalling pathways underlying activity-dependent neuronal plasticity
• Discriminating associative learning networks in the human brain: psychopharmacological modulation
• How to form specific synapses?
• Understanding the role of planar cell polarity at the neuroepithelial/neuron interface
• Modeling abnormal synaptic connectivity in neurodevelopmental disorders
• Deregulated EAAT2 function and glutamate excitotoxicity in TDP-43 related ALS
• Effect of mind training on attention and information processing: an electrophysiological investigation
• Estimating penetrance in familial ALS kindreds with known disease causing mutations
• Relationship between surface anatomy and underlying local connectivity of the central sulcus
• The contribution of microglia to Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis
• Exploring social impairments and non-social assets in autism
• Stress and ALS: A seeding event for disease?
• The examination of amyloidβ trafficking in Drosophila Melanogaster through genetic manipulation
• Identifying the genetic contribution to suicide attempt in mood disorders
• Exploring social impairments and non-social assets in autism
• Local and global connectivity of the brain in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Knocking down micro-RNA 497 in human hippocampal stem cells: effect on Klotho & Wnt3A expression
• Identification of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease progression in the blood transcriptome
• The regulation of neurogenesis in adult hippocampal neural stem cells
• Mechanisms of neurogenesis in the zebrafish embryo
• Stress and ALS: A seeding event for disease?
• The link between prenatal stress and predisposition to eating disorders in the offspring
• Mitochondria-endoplasmic reticulum interactions and Parkinson’s disease
• How far genome-wide association studies helped us in identifying the risk genes for psychosis? A systematic review
• The relationship between white matter changes and cannabis use in first-episode psychosis: A DTI tractography study
• The role of the complement cascade in the context of AD
• Modeling abnormal synaptic connectivity in neurodevelopmental disorders
• Analysis of cerebellar Purkinje neuron development in a mouse model for syndromic autism
• The role of DNA repair in Alzheimer disease
• Cadherin-9 expression analysis in the cerebellum
• Effect of environmental noise on oculomotor functions: Implications for schizophrenia
• Turnover and degradation of FUS
• Salience and response inhibition networks in adults with psychopathy
• Effect of cannabis on the frontostriatal functional connectivity
• Synaptic targets of TDP-43 dysfunction in a Drosophila model of ALS/FTD
• Comparison of blood-based protein biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders
• Life course predictors of the personality trait conscientiousness
• The role of α2-chimaerin in the oculomotor system
• MicroRNA regulation of neural stem cell proliferation in the Drosophila CNS
• What is the effect of genotype on cerebral activity in depression?
• ßAPP and APOJ activation in the cranial nerves in head injury and neurodegeneration
• Synaptic targets of TDP-43 dysfunction in a Drosophila model of ALS/FTD
• Profiling of patients with temporomandibular joint dysfunction
• Fronto-striatal connections and risk of psychosis in adults born preterm
• Allele specific expression in stem cells and their differentiated progeny
• Screening candidate genes for rare mutations in Alzheimer's disease
• Mitochondria-endoplasmic reticulum interactions and Alzheimer’s disease
• Impaired interhemispheric communication in primary progressive aphasia
• What is the effect of antidepressant medication on the neural correlates of depression?
• Characterising mutations in the gene Profilin 1
• Measuring inflammatory biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease pathology in human plasma and saliva samples
• Effects of cognitive enhancers on psychophysiology, neurocognition and neurophysiology in patients with schizophrenia and healthy subjects
• The effects of fasting on the choice of immediate versus delayed rewards

 

Part-time
• A study of the chronicity of depression following treatment with Interferon for Hepatitis C
• Perceptual decision making in the context of pain
• Study on effects of genetic influence (Zinc Finger protein gene) on broad clinical outcomes of psychosis
• Genetic variability in response to anti-psychotics
• Knocking down micro-RNA 497 in human hippocampal stem cells: effect on Klotho & Wnt3A expression
• Effects of childhood abuse on anticipatory fear in violent offenders: an fMRI study
• Meta-analysis of structural neuroimaging in bipolar disorder
• Prenatal and postnatal depression and anxiety effects on mothers and fathers and their effects on their offspring
• Cognitive analysis of alcohol dependence
• Alterations in structural connectivity in psychopathy: Relation to affective and interpersonal traits
• The neuroanatomical basis of handedness
• Examining the connections between neurochemicals and mathematical abilities in young children
• Clearance of Clusterin complexes from the brain in Alzheimer's disease
• Genotype and pathological phenotype in Alzheimer's disease
• An experimental defination of Drosophila hard-wired locomotor behaviour
• Function of the BMP signalling pathway in motor axon development and degeneration
• Dissecting childhood and adulthood obsessive-compulsive personality traits in eating disorders: a multicenter European discordant sister-pair design
• The role of MRAPs in cannabinoid 1 receptor trafficking and function
• Correlation of apathy with frontal lobe dysfunction
• Meta-analysis of structural neuroimaging in bipolar disorder
• Volumetric and white matter abnormalities in severe and chronic treatment resistant depression
• Comparison of clinical variables in the top five genes among the UCL bipolar sample
• Molecular mechanisms of memory formation and storage
• Compare and contrast the use of botulinum toxin A in differing facial and head pain conditions
• Olfactory bulb atrophy in Huntington's disease
• Characterisation of regional NRXN1 transcript expression and investigation of cis-acting regulatory influences
• Pathways to reward
• Exploring the efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy for infantile Batten disease
• What is the species of A-beta that causes the toxicity found in a Drosophila model that expresses both tau and A-beta
• Determining the onset of disease progression in the Mcoln^-/- mice
• Applications of DTI to radiotherapy treatment planning
• Genetic variability in response to anti-psychotics