Helen Valerie Curran - Biography#

Early in her career when benzodiazepines (BDZs) like Valium were very widely used globally to treat anxiety disorders and insomnia, Val questioned what other effects these drug might have and how this may affect patients’ well-being? Her pioneering research showed how potency and half-life variations in BDZs differentially impaired human memory systems as well as having differential addictive profiles. She showed how older adults’ cognitive functions and sleep can improve when their BDZ dose was gradually decreased and replaced with a placebo. In a similar way, she dissected the cognitive effects of antidepressants with differing pharmacological actions showing how the impairing effects of many drugs should be considered alongside their anti-depressant potential.

As drug treatments can impair a patient’s memory, can it also impair their progress in learning-based psychological therapies? As a clinical psychologist as well as a psychopharmacologist, Val became a pioneer in how psychoactive drugs may interact to enhance or impede psychological treatments including for anxiety disorders, treatment resistant depression, psychoses and addiction.

Her research now is on the short- and long-term effects of psychoactive drugs on mental health, cognition and the brain. It spans drugs used in medical treatments, drugs used recreationally and several drugs (e.g. cannabinoids, ketamine, opiates) used in both contexts Currently she is leading a 5 year MRC project exploring whether adolescents differ in their response to THC and CBD in cannabis, both acutely in a functional imaging lab study and chronically in a longitudinal study over 15 months. She is also researching potential medical uses of cannabinoids, including leading an RCT which has shown how CBD combined with psychological therapy can enhance the treatment of cannabis addiction.

Val is a very active mentor of early career researchers and a passionate science communicator. She has received grants continually from MRC since 2008 as well as from other funders (e.g. NIHR, ESRC) and has been an invited speaker at >100 national/international scientific meetings.