About Dr Mazda Beigi:

Mazda is a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist with a strong background in clinical work and academia. He completed his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. His clinical experience extends to working with older adults, adults and young people. Mazda has experience of working therapeutically in community and inpatient settings using a range of interventions including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Narrative Exposure Therapy. He is particularly experienced in delivering neuropsychological assessments for clients with a range of neurodegenerative disorders. Mazda's clinical interests also include working with refugees and other marginalised groups. He strongly believes in delivering interventions and assessments that are culturally sensitive and actively works towards modelling therapy to incorporate this where appropriate.

Mazda has experience of working with clients who present with anxiety related difficulties such as OCD, phobias as well as generalised anxiety and PTSD. Mazda is also experienced at working with clients presenting with low mood and low self-esteem. Mazda draws on a number of therapeutic interventions to provide the best possible support to clients. This allows for greater flexibility to be able to adapt to necessary changes during the course of therapy. He is particularly keen on providing therapies that challenge and stimulate clients to come to realisations that they would not have otherwise considered. In this sense, therapy with Mazda involves exploration of detailed narratives and activities to both reveal underlying processes that have resulted in presenting difficulties, as well as addressing them.

Mazda initially completed a PhD at Brunel University in collaboration with the University College London Institute of Neurology in Queen Square. Mazda's doctoral thesis concentrated on investigating cognitive processes in healthy adults and those with neurodegenerative disorders. His ongoing research activities include publications in high impact factor journals on a wide variety of neurological conditions such as movement disorders (including Parkinson’s disease) and dementia.

As well as clinical and research activities, Mazda is involved in teaching on the King's College London Clinical Psychology training programme were he also supervises trainees. Mazda also works as an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths University and occasionally provides teaching at Middlesex University and the University of Northampton. He has an additional interest in providing talks and workshops in schools in order to reach out to and support young aspiring therapists. Mazda has a particular interest in advocating for the need for more young people from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to pursue careers in psychology.

Research publications:

Osman M, Wilkinson L, Beigi M, Sanchez Castaneda C, Jahanshahi M. Patients with Parkinson’s disease learn to control complex systems via procedural as well as non-procedural learning. Neuropsychologia, 46: 2355–2363, 2008.

Seo M, Beigi M, Jahanshahi M, Averbeck B. Effects of Dopamine Medication on Sequence Learning with Stochastic Feedback in Parkinson's Disease. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 4: 36, 2010.

Anzak A, Gaynor L, Beigi M, Limousin P, Hariz M, Zrinzo L, Foltynie T, Brown P, Jahanshahi M. A gamma band specific role of the subthalamic nucleus in switching during verbal fluency tasks in Parkinson’s disease. Experimental Neurology, 07, 010, 2011.

Wilkinson L, Beigi M, Lagnado D, Jahanshahi M. Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus selectively improves learning of weakly associated cue combinations during probabilistic classification learning in Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychology, Vol 25(3), 286-294, 2011.

Galea M*, Bestmann M*, Beigi M, Jahanshahi M, Rothwell J. Action Reprogramming in Parkinson's Disease: Response to Prediction Error Is Modulated by Levels of Dopamine. The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 11, 542-550, 2012.

Anzak A, Gaynor L, Beigi M, Foltynie T, Limousin P, Zrinzo L, Brown P, Jahanshahi M. Subthalamic nucleus gamma oscillations mediate a switch from automatic to controlled processing: A study of random number generation in Parkinson's disease. Neuroimage, Vol 64, 284-289, 2012.

Jahanshahi M, Torkamani M, Beigi M, Wilkinson L, Page D, Madeley L, Bhatia K, Hariz M, Zrinzo L, Limousin P, Ruge D, Tisch S. Pallidal stimulation for primary generalised dystonia: effect on cognition, mood and quality of life. Journal of Neurology, Vol 261, 164-173, 2014.

Kefalopoulou Z, Zrinzo L, Jahanshahi M, Candelario J, Milabo C, Beigi M, Akram H, Hyam J, Clayton J, Kass-Iliyya L, Silverdale M, Evans J, Limousin P, Hariz M, Joyce E, Foltynie T. Bilateral globus pallidus stimulation for severe Tourette's syndrome: a double-blind, randomised crossover trial. Lancet Neurology. 14(6):595-605. 2015.

Beigi B, Beigi M, Niyadurupola N, Saldana M, El-Hindy N, Gupta D. Infraorbital Nerve Decompression for Infraorbital Neuralgia/Causalgia following Blowout Orbital Fractures: A Case Series. Craniomaxillofac Trauma Reconstruction. 10(1):22-28. 2017.

Beigi M, Wilkinson L,, Gobet F, Parton A, Jahanshahi M. Levodopa medication improves incidental sequence learning in Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia. V93, pg53-60. 2016.

Gratwicke J, Zrinzo L, Kahan J, Peters A, Beigi M, Akram A et al.  Bilateral Deep Brain Stimulation of the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert for Parkinson Disease Dementia. JAMA Neurol.(2):169-178. 2018.

Cappon D*,  Beigi M*(*joint first authors) Kefalopoulou Z, Zrinzo L, Candelario J, Milabo C, Akram H, Dayal V, Hyam J, Kass-Iliyya L, Silverdale M, Evans J, Limousin P, Hariz M, Joyce E, Foltynie T, Jahanshahi M. Globus pallidal deep brain stimulation for Tourette syndrome: Effects on cognitive function. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders VoL69, 14-18. 2019.

Gratwicke J, Zrinzo L, Kahan J, Peters A, Brechany U, McNichol A, Beigi M, et al,. Bilateral nucleus basalis of Meynert deep brain stimulation for dementia with Lewy bodies: A randomised clinical trial. Brain Stimulation. Vol 13, pg1031-1039, 2020.

Owens A, Ballard C, Beigi M, Kalafatis C, Brooker H, Lavelle G, Bronnick K, Sauer J, Boddington S, Velayudhan L, Aarslan D. Implementing Remote Memory Clinics to Enhance Clinical Care During and After COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Vol 11, pg1-15, 2020.