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A researcher into psychosis has had a meteoric rise in the Faculty.

Flavie Waters, who completed two degrees in England, started as a student at UWA in 2000 and last August was appointed Associate Professor in the Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry.

This was all while working part-time in order to start a family and be with her two young babies.

Her work has focused on delineating the brain mechanisms underlying psychotic symptoms, which traditionally refer to mistaken perceptions, or hallucinations, and abnormal beliefs, or delusions.

She completed a combined Masters degree in Clinical Neuropsychology and PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at UWA.  Her PhD, which was awarded in early 2005, examined the cognitive processes underlying auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

“I was drawn to this field and it is a continuing source of fascination for me,” she said.

“We know very little about why these symptoms arise and why they continue.”

As a result of her research she and her colleagues have developed a new theoretical model for hallucinations which explains voices as memories which are not recognised as such by the patient.

“These experiences are also unexpected and do not feel like normal memories, so they are often assigned to somebody else,” she said.

“Most of the voices are very intrusive and distressing. They’ll go on sometimes all day long telling people how hopeless they are, and so on.”

The patient often recognises the voices as belonging to a person they know, or someone on the radio or TV or elsewhere.

But this does not necessarily mean they are linked to past abusive experiences.

“Voices arise because of a dysfunction in the brain, although the interaction with past negative experiences is very complex,” Associate Professor Waters said.

In 2006, she was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council Research Training Fellowship to work on a postdoctoral project examining the brain-behaviour relationship underlying a cluster of psychotic symptoms termed delusions of alien control, or passivity experiences.  Her findings on this project seem to indicate that these delusions arise because of a distorted sense of bodily-self.

Recently, Associate Professor Waters was awarded a NHMRC project grant to continue her work on delusions of control in schizophrenia.

Another focus of her research is in the brain processes underpinning psychotic symptoms in older adults with mental health problems, including dementia.

Hallucinations and delusions become relatively common as people get older, yet very little is known about the brain processes responsible for these symptoms,” she said.

“I have two new projects this year which are undertaken by PhD students which aim to advance this area of research.  My long term goal is to contribute to the development of non drug-based interventions aimed at reducing the severity and impact of these symptoms in older adults.  This is especially important because of increasing concerns about the side-effects and safety of antipsychotic medication in older adults.”

Together with Dr Helen McGowan, she led the development a year ago of the Older Adult Clinical Research Unit, as part of a clinical service run by the North Metropolitan Area Health Services.

In the Unit, she has asked clinicians to generate their own research questions with regard to older people with mental health problems. This ensures that research questions have direct relevance to all clinicians involved who deliver care for older adults.

The combination of research into clinical practice is deemed a critical step towards improving health outcomes.

“The clinicians are very taken with it,” she said, adding that she helps them with setting up their research methods and analysing the findings.