The University of Sheffield
Department of Neuroscience

Professor Peter W R Woodruff MBBS PhD MRCP FRCPsych

Professor and Head of Academic Clinical Psychiatry
Director of the Sheffield Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory (SCANLab)
Deputy head of the Section of Neuroscience

Telephone: 0114 226 1501
E-mail: p.w.woodruff@sheffield.ac.uk

Membership of National and International Committees

Membership of Editorial Boards/Editorships

National/International Fellowships/Research Prizes

  1. The Wellcome Trust Neural Correlates of acoustic spatial processing in auditory hallucinations, March 2003 – February 2006, £267,537, Research Training Fellowship for Dr M Hunter sponsored by PWR Woodruff
  2. Overseas Research Studentship, 1/9/03 – 1/9/06, £30,000, PWR Woodruff Supervision of Zhijian Yao
  3. BMA (Margaret Temple Fellowship) Disordered comprehension of emotional prosody as a precursor of paranoid delusions and social deficits in schizophrenia Sep 2002 - Jul 2004, £34,000, L Newton (Principal Supervisor PWR Woodruff)
  4. John Templeton Foundation Does forgiveness enhance brain activation in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder? Oct 1998 - Nov 2002 Principal Investigator Woodruff PWR to support Dr Tom Farrow N £130,000
  5. MRC Clinical Scientist Fellowship Studies of human gastrointestinal sensation in health and disease, Apr 1998 - Mar 2003, £226,499, Q Aziz

Plenary and Invited Lectures at National/International Conferences

Research interests

Research developments in Academic Clinical Psychiatry

I was appointed as Professor and Head of Academic Clinical Psychiatry in 1999 as part of a strategic investment in Neuroscience in order to set up a Biological Psychiatry Research Group and develop functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in Sheffield. In collaboration with the Academic Unit of Radiology we developed and published the first fMRI human studies in Sheffield and built the Sheffield Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory (SCANLab) officially opened by the Vice Chancellor on 28th March 2001.

SCANLab, a dedicated neuroimaging laboratory based within the Academic Unit of Psychiatry at the Northern General Hospital site and linked to the MRI systems at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital delivers networked image analysis software and programming facilities for detailed analysis of complex imaging data. The group has developed cutting edge voxel-based-morphometry and computerised acoustic psychophysics techniques. The collaboration with the Academic Unit of Radiology provides access to excellent MR imaging facilities (superconducting whole body 1.5T systems x 2 (Eclipse, Infinion, Philips Medical System). A superconducting whole body 3.0T system (Intera, Philips Medical System) performs most of the high-end neuroimaging research (BOLD imaging, spectroscopy and diffusion tensor imaging).

Collaboration with Professor A.T. Barker from the Department of Medical Physics has allowed us to develop ways of applying Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to answer key questions of normal and abnormal brain function as applied to psychiatric conditions.

We have more recently developed:

Current areas of research activity and findings

Perception
Auditory processing and hallucinations
This programme examines the neural basis of perception of voices in health and in the auditory hallucinations of disease states using fMRI. The work seeks to define the neurobiology of the auditory perception. We have used virtual acoustics (in collaboration with Professor Tim Griffiths, Newcastle) to show differences between 'voices' heard inside and outside the head and examined the impact of lateralised brain structure and function on the pathogenesis of auditory hallucinations. The demonstration that pitch-matched male and female voices activate distinct regions in the male and female brain illuminates the clinical observation of predominantly male auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Hearing familiar voices activates discrete auditory cortical regions that are also concerned with the experience of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. We provided the first fMRI demonstration of spontaneous activation of auditory cortex in acoustic silence, a major development in neuroimaging methods and the theory of auditory hallucinations.

Time perception
We have developed psychophysical models to probe time perception. We have shown that distinct abnormalities in schizotypy and schizophrenia relate to reduced cerebellar vermis volume. We have shown direct evidence for a cerebellar role in processing sub-second time intervals. Cerebellar Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) effects on time perception differentiate patients with schizophrenia from healthy volunteers. TMS leads to acute fMRI effects enabling the development treatment trials to improve prefrontal function.

Social Cognition & Emotional Processing
Neurobiology of empathy and forgiveness
We published the first study to demonstrate the functional anatomy of empathy and forgiveness. Psychological treatment of patients with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder "normalised" the brain´s response to probes of social cognition in specific regions. Extending this to schizophrenia showed that functional recovery after treatment relates to improved social outcomes.

Emotional processing and interpretation of cues
We investigate neural processes in perception and mis-perception of the emotional quality of speech relevant to auditory hallucinations and delusions. We developed the simultaneous mapping of skin conductance response (SCR) and fMRI data (in collaboration with Professor Barker, Medical Physics) and collaborate with Professor Griffiths from Newcastle on brain responses to specific noxious auditory stimuli in disease groups.
We are examining emotional processing in sub-groups of patients with schizophrenia, particularly the recognition of facial emotion and the neurobiology of humour. We are using fMRI to determine whether humour deficit in schizophrenia forms a key component of "negative symptoms" and social deficit disorder.

Defining the disorder and change over time
We have developed a new statistical method to analyse semantic cognitive structure in a widely used neuropsychological test (category fluency) in individuals with schizophrenia. We developed a new neuropsychiatric screening test of executive function with high diagnostic validity applicable in individuals with either schizophrenia or Alzheimer´s Disease.
Novel applications of structural and functional MR analysis methods have enabled us to map functional and structural datasets to monitor treatment-induced and time-dependent changes in brain function and structure..

Impact of research on Healthcare and Public Understanding of Science
Research outputs on neural correlates of male and female voice perception and on brain imaging of forgiveness attracted national and international attention from over 50 media outlets, including Science, The Times, The Observer Magazine, Der Spiegel, BBC Radio 4. Methodology developed by us has been applied in other settings, for example by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Research supervision

Since 2001, I have supervised 46 students (9 PhD, 2 MD, 1 MPhil, 2 BMS, 9 BMedSci, 22 MBBS research projects, 1 F2 trainee). These have included:

Members of Research Group

Collaborators

Grant Income

Major Funding sources include:

Selected publications