Tom Pollak

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT TOM POLLAK

I am Reader in Immunopsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London and an Honorary Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. I have been at King’s since 2015, but affiliated since 2004.I trained in psychology (BA; Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford), medicine (MBBS; King’s College London), clinical psychiatry (MRCPsych; Royal College of Psychiatrists) and clinical neurology (MSc; University College London). In 2015, I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship to look at the neuroimmunological basis of psychiatric disease, with a particular focus on the autoantibodies known to cause autoimmune encephalitis. In 2019, I was awarded an NIHR Clinical Lectureship.I have set up and co-run a joint multidisciplinary clinic at King’s College Hospital dedicated to the assessment and management of patients with confirmed or suspected autoimmune encephalitis and other central nervous system autoimmune disorders. I also jointly ran a neuropsychiatry-led long COVID clinic.In my current work, I am attempting to improve the early detection of autoimmune psychosis, as well as elucidating the brain mechanisms by which a self-reactive immune response might give rise to neuropsychiatric symptoms across a range of health and disease states. My other research interests include elucidating the immunological effects of psychotropic drugs, the impact of mental illness risk factors on immune system function, the role of infections in psychiatry, psychopathologies of the digitally extended mind including \'AI-associated delusions\', glutamatergic abnormalities in psychosis and organic presentations in clinical neuropsychiatry.I am co-Investigator and clinical lead for the Wellcome Trust funded Immune Mechanisms of Antipsychotic Treatment Response (IMAT) study.I have a developing research interest in the neuroscience, phenomenology, neuropsychiatry, benefits and adverse effects of meditation and other contemplative practices.