Urban living is an established factor in the aetiology of psychosis, but the connection between them remains unclear. Working as part of a team including neuroscientists, philosophers, anthropologists, psychiatrists, urban planners and sociologists, I am studying the relationships between urbanicity, neuroendocrine development, and mental health to investigate how urban life gets “under the skin” and impacts the mind in the course of development. My particular interests are in the role of social experiences of city-living, such as exclusion and perceptions of social injustice. Our team is approaching this question by relating young people’s social experiences to a range of genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and urban factors.
