Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences School of Behavioural Science

Associate Professor Nicholas Allen

BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD, MAPS. 

Associate Professor
Principal Research Fellow

Contact details:

email: nba AT unimelb.edu.au  
telephone: +61 3 8344 6325 or +61 3 9342 2819 (ORYGEN Research Centre)  

 

What is depression? How can we tell the difference between normal depressed moods and clinical depression? How does being depressed affect the way a person processes and responds to emotional and social situations? Why are teenagers much more likely to suffer from depression than children? Why are some people more vulnerable to depression than others? Can we prevent depression from occurring, or prevent it from coming back? These are some of the questions that drive my research program. To answer them I use a combination of basic science and clinical science strategies.

For example, in my lab we use psychophysiological techniques to understand how emotion, attention, and social cognition are affected by depressed states and vulnerability to depression. Recently we have also begun to use structural and functional neuroimaging to better understand the role of the brain in these processes. I also head up a large longitudinal study of adolescent development and the emergence of emotional and behavioural problems with colleagues at the ORYGEN Research Centre, the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre and the Department of Psychology. In the clinical arena we are investigating the role of cognitive and emotional processes in recovery and relapse in depressed adolescents, and the effectiveness of innovative interventions (such as Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) in early intervention and relapse prevention with adolescents.

 

Research Interests:

Professional Associations, Memberships & Awards:

 

Recent Funded Research:

Project: Brain development during adolescence and the emergence of depression: A longitudinal MRI study.
Year: 2008-2012
Funded by: Australian Research Council Discovery Grant

Project: Diagnosis of depressive disorder and risk for depression in adolescents using acoustic speech analysis. (with Margaret Lech [RMIT])
Year: 2007-2010
Funded by: Australian Research Council Linkage Grant

Project: First episode depression in young people: An fMRI study of responses to immediate and delayed, social and non-social rewards.
Year: 2008-2009
Funded by: Pfizer Australia; Neuro Science Research Grants

Project: Investigating the social brain: The neural basis of the link between depressed states and social cognition
Year: 2005–2007
Funded by: Australian Research Council Discovery grant

Project: Preventive and Early Intervention Strategies in Emerging Mental Disorders in Young People
Year: 2005–2008
Funded by: National Health & Medical Research Council Clinical Centre of Research Excellence Grant

Project: Emotion dysregulation: Depression and family stress
Year: 2005–2009
Funded by: National Institute of Mental Health USA

 

Selected Publications:

 

Book:

Allen, N.B. & Sheeber, L.B. (2008). Adolescent emotional development and the emergence of depressive disorders. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Woods, S., Allen, N.B., & Pantelis, C. (In press). The neuropsychology of mental illness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Book chapters:

Badcock, P.B.T. & Allen N.B. (2007) Evolution, social cognition, and depressed mood: Exploring the relationship between depressed mood and social risk taking. In Forgas, J.P., Haselton, M.G., von Hippel, W. (eds.) Evolution and the Social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition.  New York: Psychology Press.

Allen, N.B., Barrett, A., Sheeber, L., & Davis, B. (2006). Pubertal development and the emergence of the gender gap in mood disorders: A developmental and evolutionary synthesis. In D. Castle, J. Kulkarni & K. Abel (Eds.) Mood and anxiety disorders in women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Allen, N.B. (2006). Cognitive psychotherapy. In S. Bloch (Ed.) An introduction to the psychotherapies. (4th Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press

 

Refereed Journal Articles:

Yap, M.B.H., Whittle, S., Yücel, M., Sheeber, L., Pantelis, C., Simmons, J., & Allen, N.B. (2008). Interaction of parenting experiences and brain structure in the prediction of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65, 1377-1385.

Lethbridge, R. & Allen, N.B. (2008). Mood induced cognitive and emotional reactivity, life stress, and the prediction of depressive relapse. Behavior Research and Therapy,46, 1142-1150.

Whittle, S., Yücel, M., Fornito, A., Barrett, A., Wood, S., Lubman, D., Simmons, J., Pantelis, C., & Allen, N.B. (2008). Neuroanatomical correlates of temperament in early adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 47 (6), 682-693.

Yap, M., Allen. N.B., & Ladouceur, C. (2008). Maternal socialization of positive affect: The impact of “dampening” on adolescent emotion regulation and depressive symptomatology. Child Development, 79, 1415-1431.

Whittle, S., Yap, M.B.H., Yücel, M., Fornito, A., Barrett, A., Sheeber, L., & Allen, N.B. (2008). Prefrontal and amygdala volumes are related to adolescents’ affective behaviors during parent adolescent interactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (9), 3652-3657.

Yap, M., Allen. N.B., Leve, C. & Fainsilber-Katz, L. (2008). Maternal meta-emotion philosophy and socialization of adolescent affect: The moderating role of adolescent temperament. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 688-700.

Chambers, R., Lo., C., & Allen, N.B. (2008). The impact of intensive mindfulness training on executive cognition, cognitive style, and affect. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 32, 303-322.

Davey,C.D., Yücel, M. & Allen, N.B. (2008). The emergence of depression in adolescence: Development of the prefrontal cortex and the representation of reward. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 32, 1-19.

Allen, N.B., Hetrick, S., Simmons, J. & Hickie, I. (2007). Early intervention for depressive disorders in young people: The opportunity and the (lack of) evidence. Medical Journal of Australia,187(7), S15-S17 .

Lubman, D.I., Allen, N.B., Peters, L.A .& Deakin, J.F.W. (2007). Electrophysiological evidence of the motivational salience of drug cues in opiate addiction. Psychological Medicine, 37, 1203-1210.

Kettle, J., Andrewes, D. & Allen, N.B. (2006). Lateralization of the startle reflex circuit in humans: An examination with monaural probes following unilateral temporal lobe resection. Behavioral Neuroscience, 120, 24-39.

Whittle, S., Allen, N.B., Lubman, D., & Yücel, M. (2006). The neuroanatomical basis of affective temperament: Towards a better understanding of psychopathology. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30, 511-525.

Allen, N.B., & Badcock, P.B.T. (2003). The social risk hypothesis of depressed mood: Evolutionary, psychosocial, and neurobiological perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 887-913 .

Lewinsohn, P.M., Allen, N.B., Seeley, J.R., & Gotlib, I.H. (1999). First onset versus recurrence of depression: Differential processes of psychosocial risk. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 483-489

 

ResearchStudents under Supervision:

PhD Theses in Progress

Anna Barrett  (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel)
Ali Cheetham (Department of Psychiatry, Co-supervised with Dan Lubman)
Mel Cooke (Co-supervised with Dan Lubman)
Meg Dennison (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel)
Yvonne Groot
Alison Hunter (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Renee Lichter (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Laurie O'Brien-Simpson
Orli Schwartz (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Julian Simmons
Owen Spear
Ian Williams (Co-supervised with Lyndal Bond)
George Youssef (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel and Dan Lubman)

Doctor of Psychology Theses in Progress

 

 

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