Professor Essi Viding FBA

Essi Viding is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London. Her major scientific contribution has been to use multiple methodologies, including behavioural genetic, neuroimaging, and experimental psychology methods to characterise the biology, environment and psychology of children at risk of developing persistent antisocial behaviour. She has shown that children with antisocial behaviour and callous-unemotional traits are a distinct, genetically vulnerable subgroup of those showing antisocial behaviour, with particular structural and functional abnormalities in brain areas involved in emotion processing and regulation. Her research has been critical in getting these children recognised in diagnostic schemes and has clear implications for individualising treatment approaches.