Camilla Nord

Brain scientist Dr Camilla Nord explains her groundbreaking work on mental health and offers knowledge, tools and questions that can help us find our own personal way to a balanced brain.

Nord says it is a misperception that mental health is all in the mind or that physical pain is located in the body. She says her research in neuroscience reveals a new view of mental health, that it is a balancing act by the brain. She says there is an intricate, self-regulating process organised by the brain to constantly manage our health and wellbeing. The brain is building a personal experience of our internal and external worlds, which explains why antidepressants work for one person and not another and why the same goes for long walks, laughing with friends or taking recreational drugs. Nord says we each need to explore a breadth of things that could improve our mental health.

Nord runs her own laboratory at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. In 2022, she was named a Rising Star by the US Association for Psychological Science and received the Young Investigator Award from the European Society for Affective and Cognitive Science.

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