Professor Nicholas Allen
BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD, MAPS.
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:
- Behavioural Neuroscience
- Affective and social neuroscience
- Psychophysiology and neurobiology of emotion, attention and temperament
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychological and biological models of affective disorders
- Causes of the emergence of affective disorders during adolescence
- Early intervention and prevention of affective disorders
- Evolutionary bases of emotion and psychopathology
- Cognitive therapy
- Developmental Psychology
- Adolescent brain and behavioural development
- Family processes in adolescent development and risk for depression
-
Affective Neuroscience Lab
Professional Associations, Memberships & Awards:
- Australian Psychological Society
- American Psychological Association
- Society for Psychophysiological Research
- Society for Research in Psychopathology
- Registered Clinical Psychologist, Victoria, Australia
- International Society for Research on Emotions
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:
Books:
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. (2009). The neuropsychology of mental illness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jorm, A.F., Allen, N.B., Purcell, R., Hetrick, S., & Morgan, A. (2009). A guide to what works for depression. Melbourne, Australia: Beyondblue.
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:
Sheeber, L., Allen, N.B., Leve, C., Davis, B., Shortt, J.W. & Katz, L.F. (In press). Dynamics of affective experience and behavior in depressed adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Davey, C. G., Allen, N.B., Harrison, B.J., Dwyer, D.B., & Yücel, M. (In press). Being liked activates primary reward- and midline self-related regions. Human Brain Mapping.
Lubman, D.I., Yücel, M., Kettle, J., Scaffidi, A., MacKenzie, T., Simmons, J.G., & Allen, N.B. (2009). Anhedonia in opiate addiction predicts later heroin use. Archives of General Psychiatry, 66(2), 205-212.
Whittle, S., Yap, M.B.H., Yücel, M., Sheeber, L., Simmons, J.G., Pantelis, C., & Allen, N.B. (2009). Maternal responses to adolescent positive affect are associated with adolescents’ reward neuroanatomy. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN), 4, 247-256.
Lorenzetti, V., Allen, N.B., Fornito, A., & Yücel, M. (2009). Structural brain abnormities in Major Depressive Disorder: A systematic review of recent MRI studies. Journal of Affective Disorders, 117, 1-17.
Chambers, R., Gullone, E. & Allen, N.B. (2009). Mindful emotion regulation: An integrative review. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 560-572.
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.
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.
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, 483-489ResearchStudents under Supervision:
PhD Theses in Progress
Anna Barrett (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel)
Michelle Byrne (Co-supervised with Neil O’Brien-Simpson)
Ali Cheetham (Department of Psychiatry, Co-supervised with Dan Lubman)
Mel Cooke (Co-supervised with Dan Lubman)
Meg Dennison (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel and Sarah Whittle)
Dominic Dywer (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel and Ben Harrison)
Rachel Ellis (Co-supervised with Stephen Wood)
Tamsen Franklin
Rashika Gomez (Co-supervised with Sarah Wilson)
Yvonne Groot
Steve Halperin (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Alison Hunter (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Renee Lichter (Co-supervised with Paul Dudgeon)
Kerianne Little (Co-supervised with Debra Foley)
Laurie O'Brien-Simpson
Julian Simmons
Owen Spear
Nandita Vijayakumar (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel and Sarah Whittle)
George Youssef (Co-supervised with Murat Yücel and Dan Lubman)