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Will Strawson

PhD Student
E: w.strawson@sussex.ac.uk
Location: Trafford Centre, Brighton, BN1 9RX

Areas of expertise: Ongoing thought and functional brain organisation in clinical and neurodiverse populations

Research areas: Functional magnetic resonance imaging, functional connectivity, experience sampling

Preferred gender pronouns: He/him

Twitter handle: @WillHStrawson

Biography

Will studied for an integrated masters (MSci) in Psychology at the University of York. With a focus on cognitive neuroscience, this program taught a range of neuroimaging modalities and analysis techniques. Under supervision from Jonathan Smallwood, Will completed his degree with a specialization in study of ongoing thoughts and multivariate measures of whole-brain functional organisation.

Will moved to Brighton and Sussex Medical School to complete a 4-year Sussex Neuroscience PhD under the initial supervision of Sarah Garfinkel (UCL) and continued supervision of Hugo Critchley (BSMS, Sussex) and Charlotte Rae (Psychology, Sussex). Will continues to maintain productive collaborations with researchers inside and outside of Sussex.

Research

Will is particularly interested in understanding patterns of ongoing thought across clinical and neurodiverse populations. He utilises experience sampling methodologies to capture thought across changing contexts, both in the lab and in daily life. He also uses fMRI to understand the role of brain activity and connectivity in ongoing thought and clinical phenotypes.

PhD work includes understanding the phenomenological and neural relationship between ongoing thought and auditory hallucinations in borderline personality patients. Will has also investigated differences in ongoing thoughts between autistic and non-autistic individuals.

Through his collaboration with researchers at Queen’s University in Canada, Will has helped facilitate several research projects abroad. One such project that utilised momentary experience sampling to understand ongoing thought patterns in daily life investigated the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on peoples’ thought patterns.

Will is also excited to develop open-source python-based tools for the analysis of ongoing thought and brain connectivity.

Teaching

Will teaches fMRI workshops to neuroscience and medical students, with a focus on fMRI data visualisation and analysis.

Selected publications

Strawson, W. H., Wang, H. T., Quadt, L., Sherman, M., Larsson, D. E., Davies, G., ... & Garfinkel, S. N. (2022). Voice hearing in borderline personality disorder across perceptual, subjective, and neural dimensions. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 25(5), 375-386.

Strawson, W., Mckeown, B., Wang, H. T., Quadt, L., Larsson, D. E., Mulcahy, J., S, Marta., & Garfinkel, S. N. (In review). Differences in ongoing thought between autistic and non-autistic adults. Scientific Reports

Mckeown, B., Strawson, W. H., Wang, H. T., Karapanagiotidis, T., de Wael, R. V., Benkarim, O., ... & Smallwood, J. (2020). The relationship between individual variation in macroscale functional gradients and distinct aspects of ongoing thought. NeuroImage, 220, 117072.

Mckeown, B., Poerio, G. L., Strawson, W. H., Martinon, L. M., Riby, L. M., Jefferies, E., ... & Smallwood, J. (2021). The impact of social isolation and changes in work patterns on ongoing thought during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(40), e2102565118.

Bull, P., & Strawson, W. (2020). Can’t answer? Won’t answer? An analysis of equivocal responses by Theresa May in Prime Minister’s questions. Parliamentary Affairs, 73(2), 429-449.

Hayward, M., Jones, A. M., Strawson, W. H., Quadt, L., Larsson, D. E., Silva, M., ... & Garfinkel, S. N. (2022). A cross‐sectional study of auditory verbal hallucinations experienced by people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 29(2), 631-641.