iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

'The Body Keeps The Score' reasserts the very mind-body duality that it seeks to overcome - great narrative by Friston and colleagues www.frontiersin.org/journals/sys...

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

If you want to hear more I’ll be presenting this on the last day of #SIRS2026 in March!

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We also found that CRP has a specific effect on the brain in people who develop psychosis. (interaction effect, so needs replication)

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Changes in brain networks involved in self-reflection might be one pathway connecting early inflammation to later risk of psychosis and other mental health conditions.

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

What’s the deal with inflammation and schizophrenia? The jury is still out, but we found that higher childhood levels of IL-6 are linked to brain volume reductions in adulthood, in the default mode network @uclbrainscience.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Limitations: we look at psychotic experiences, not psychosis, as this is a birth cohort study. This is also it's strength; we have blood toxo measures at 3 timepoints between age 7 and 15, and prospective measures of cat ownership.

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

We also find no association between childhood cat ownership and having high toxo blood levels! Future studies take note – don’t use cat ownership as a proxy measure of Toxoplasma gondii exposure

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Cat lovers! Our new paper finds no association between Toxoplasma gondii (found in cat poo) and psychotic experiences www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @uclbrainscience.bsky.social

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Wisdom for future research - not more fancy but more integrative: Deeper phenotyping (including environmental and social experiences), multimodal, longitudinal, and with clinical implications in mind, eg by incorporating imaging into clinical drug trials www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Why doesn’t neuroimaging work in psychiatry? | The British Journal of Psychiatry | Cambridge Core

Why doesn’t neuroimaging work in psychiatry?

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Today was the last day of our module on the new BSc in Human Neuroscience @uclbrainscience.bsky.social I really recommend giving books as prizes and letting students pick between a few (Mark Solms and @camillanord.bsky.social) Receiving a book from a mentor can sometimes open up whole new worlds

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Kate Merritt @katemerritt.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Even though Hitler ranks in the top 1% for schizophrenia-linked genes, he probably didn't have schizophrenia (he had a 5-10% lifetime risk)

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