WELLCOME Mental Health AWARD┋Understanding how anxiety- and trauma-related problems develop, persist and resolve

Wellcome’s mental health strategic aim is to drive a transformative change in our ability to intervene as early as possible in the course of anxiety, depression and psychosis, in ways that reflect the priorities and needs of people who experience these problems.  

This call will fund research that advances scientific understanding of the causal mechanisms through which brain, body and environment interact over time in the development, persistence and resolution of anxiety- and trauma-related disorders.

Mental health conditions in scope

The primary focus of this call is on anxiety- and trauma-related disorders, defined here to include: 

• generalised anxiety disorder 

• panic disorder 

• social anxiety disorder 

• all types of phobias 

• obsessive-compulsive disorder 

• post-traumatic stress disorder 

• acute stress disorder 

• transdiagnostic symptoms strongly associated with the above conditions (for example, threat hyperreactivity, repetitive negative thinking, etc.).  

We will refer to anxiety-related problems throughout, to refer to all the problems listed above and in scope for this call.

Focus on causality

Existing evidence suggests that many factors contribute to the development, persistence and resolution of anxiety-related problems. For example:

• Genetics

• Childhood maltreatment

• Traumatic life experiences

• Poverty

• Negative social experiences such as bullying

• Environmental exposures such as air pollution.

However, we know much less about the biological, psychological and social causal mechanisms underpinning how and why these factors influence the trajectory of these problems over time. With this funding opportunity, we want to move beyond correlational evidence to a deeper consideration of the causal mechanisms underpinning anxiety-related problems. This mechanistic understanding will help us develop new and improved ways to predict, identify and intervene as early as possible. 

A focus on anxiety-related problems is needed because:

• anxiety is the mental health condition that affects the greatest number of people worldwide, with an estimated 301 million people living with an anxiety-related problem.  

• anxiety has the earliest onset of all mental health disorders on average, emerging earlier than other disorders such as depression or schizophrenia.  

• anxiety can both precede and coexist with other diagnoses such as depression and psychosis. In addition to the severe impact it can have on people’s lives on its own, it might also be a target to prevent the development of additional mental health problems.  

• the neurobiology of anxiety-related problems is relatively well understood, both in humans and in animal models, meaning that the field is well placed to make new, interdisciplinary and cross-species links to enhance our understanding of causality.   

Despite all this, anxiety-related problems remain under-researched and underfunded relative to other mental health problems. By improving our understanding of these problems, we will gain knowledge that can be used for translational purposes. This will help us find better ways to identify problems early on and to intervene at the most critical and earliest possible points (for example, through new therapeutic targets, new markers and new and improved early interventions).