NCMD Research Seminar Series 22nd May 2026

Speaker Dr Ahmed Alharoun, PI for COMBINER Study, CNTW.

Presentation title: The effectiveness of Lithium plus Quetiapine COMBination versus Lithlum versus QuetiapiNe monotherapy in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder (COMBINER trial)

Speaker: Dr Apoorva Peddada, Consultant Psychiatrist, CNTW

Presentation title: REinforcement Learning MEchanisms of Pharmacological Treatments for Depression (RELMED study) and Home-based transcranial direct current stimulation in major depressive disorder (HOME study)

I will present about two MDD clinical trials open for recruitment at 缅北禁地 for which I am the site's principal investigator.

RELMED is a Wellcome funded, double-blind, three-arm, placebocontrolled multi-site trial in UK primary care. It is a mechanistic study looking at whether bupropion and depression alter reinforcement learning processes in different ways in depression.

HOME is a NIHR HTA funded, multi-centre, two-parallel group, superiority randomised controlled trial that aims to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation as a treatment for depression.

I am a Consultant Psychiatrist working in the crisis team and part- time in mood disorder research and the Care Pathways Enhancement (CaPE) clinic. CaPE clinic assesses patients referred from primary care/research registers, improves access to appropriate clinical trials and provides mental health treatment recommendations. I have worked as a member of the CaPE clinic team since 2022 whilst completing my general adult higher training. Since then I have enjoyed being part of the CaPE team, watched the service develop and undertaken Associate Principal Investigator roles for the PAX- D trial (randomised placebocontrolled trial evaluating the efficacy and mechanism of pramipexole as add-on treatment for people with difficult to treat depression) and ASCEnD trial (Aripiprazole/sertraline combination: clinical and costeffectiveness in comparison with quetiapine for the treatment of bipolar depression). Since becoming a consultant in CNTW, I have been lucky to continue my interest and commitment to mood disorder
research by taking on Principal Investigator roles for two MDD studies at 缅北禁地- RELMED and HOME tDCS.

via TEAMS (click here to )

Meeting ID: 322 142 039 734 840

Passcode: b8Wk9iX9