Paul Fletcher

Professor Paul Fletcher serves as the Bernard Wolfe Professor of Health Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Director of the Cambridge Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Research Centre. He holds concurrent appointments as a Wellcome Trust Investigator and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.

His research centers on neurobiological mechanisms of psychosis, computational psychiatry, and appetite control in disordered eating. Fletcher pioneered influential theories linking prediction error signaling to psychotic symptoms, demonstrating how perturbations in frontal lobe responses explain hallucinations and delusions. His work integrates neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, and computational modeling to bridge clinical observations with neural mechanisms.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals a dominant focus on

• prediction error computation in psychosis
• cortical structural changes in mental illness
• neurobiological correlates of eating disorders
• computational modeling of perceptual inference
• dopaminergic mechanisms in learning
• translational neuroscience approaches

His work increasingly incorporates multimodal neuroimaging and real-world applications like the Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice project.

Key recognitions include:

• BAFTA Award for Games Beyond Entertainment (2017)
• James Bull Lectureship (2017)
• Election to Academy of Medical Sciences (2012)
• WFSP Research Award in Biological Psychiatry (2005)

Fletcher maintains significant research funding through Wellcome Trust appointments spanning over two decades, including current status as a Wellcome Trust Investigator. His clinical neuroscience program bridges the Department of Psychiatry with NHS trusts, emphasizing translational pathways from basic mechanisms to clinical applications. The Fletcher Group operates within the Cambridge Neuroscience network, collaborating extensively across departments and healthcare systems.