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Professor Arianna Di Florio
(she/her)
Teams and roles for Arianna Di Florio
Professor, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences
Overview
I am Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, with an honorary academic position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I trained in reproductive mental health. I serve as Clinical Lead for Cardiff University Psychiatry Service.
In 2016, I established the UK's first clinical and research programme in reproductive mental health at Cardiff University. I lead the Reproductive Mental Health Clinic, a pioneering service providing expert assessment and treatment for mental health conditions linked to reproductive life stages, including the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. The clinic offers specialized pre-conception counselling and gender-informed second opinions for women with severe mental illness. As the first and only service of its kind in the United Kingdom, the clinic brings expertise in behavioural endocrinology from specialized training at the internationally renowned UNC Center for Women's Mood Disorders.
My work has advanced women's mental health globally. I provide expert guidance to governments, public bodies, and third-sector organizations, and serve on the Clinical Advisory Board of the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD). My research has shaped clinical guidelines for treating women with bipolar disorder and informed the recognition of postpartum psychosis as a distinct condition. Recent findings from my research have identified perimenopause as a risk factor for new-onset bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder.
I have secured competitive funding from institutions across Wales, the UK, the European Union, and the United States. I serve as Executive Team Co-Director and Phenotype Group Co-Chair for the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium's Bipolar Disorder Working Group, leading international collaborative research efforts. I led the first molecular genetic study examining psychiatric sensitivity to sex hormone changes, funded by a prestigious European Research Council grant.
My research appears regularly in leading journals, with recent publications in Nature and other high-impact venues.
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Participate in Our Research
We are actively recruiting participants for studies investigating the links between reproductive hormones and mental health. Your participation can help advance our understanding of these conditions and improve care for future generations:
- PreDDICT Study - Investigating the genetic and environmental factors associated with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and severe Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
- Mums and Mental Health (MAM) Study - Understanding severe mental illness during pregnancy and following childbirth to improve treatments and support
Publication
2025
- Bergink, V. et al., 2025. Postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder: Review of neurobiology and expert consensus statement on classification. Biological Psychiatry (10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.10.016)
- Bramante, A. and Di Florio, A. 2025. A case–control study of filicide/infanticide in 90 mothers. Archives of Women's Mental Health 28 , pp.415-421. (10.1007/s00737-023-01401-5)
- Chiang, W. et al., 2025. Heterogeneity analysis provides evidence for a genetically homogeneous subtype of bipolar-disorder. PLoS ONE 20 (1) e0314288. (10.1371/journal.pone.0314288)
- Gordon, J. et al., 2025. Suicidality should be considered for inclusion in the diagnostic criteria for PMDD. The Lancet Psychiatry 12 (2), pp.90-92. (10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00288-8)
- Gordon-Smith, K. et al., 2025. Associations between lifetime reproductive events among postmenopausal women with bipolar disorder. Archives of Women's Mental Health 28 , pp.573-581. (10.1007/s00737-024-01533-2)
- Koromina, M. et al., 2025. Fine-mapping genomic loci refines bipolar disorder risk genes. Nature Neuroscience 28 (7), pp.1393-1403. (10.1038/s41593-025-01998-z)
- O'Connell, K. S. et al., 2025. Genomics yields biological and phenotypic insights into bipolar disorder. Nature 639 , pp.968-975. (10.1038/s41586-024-08468-9)
2024
- Apsey, C. , Di Florio, A. and Stawarz, K. 2024. Developing a mood and menstrual tracking app for people with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A user-centered design study. JMIR Formative Research 8 e59333. (10.2196/59333)
- Dolman, C. et al., 2024. Hypersexuality in bipolar disorder: an overlooked symptom. The Lancet Psychiatry 11 (6), pp.405-406. (10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00093-2)
- Jonsson, L. et al., 2024. Association of occupational dysfunction and hospital admissions with different polygenic profiles in bipolar disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry 181 (7), pp.620-629. (10.1176/appi.ajp.20230073)
- Koromina, M. et al., 2024. Fine-mapping genomic loci refines bipolar disorder risk genes. [Online].medRxiv: OpenRxiv. (10.1101/2024.02.12.24302716)Available at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.12.24302716.
- Perry, A. et al., 2024. Perinatal sleep disruption and postpartum psychosis in bipolar disorder: Findings from the UK BDRN Pregnancy Study. Journal of affective disorders 346 , pp.21-27. (10.1016/j.jad.2023.11.005)
- Shitomi-Jones, L. M. et al. 2024. Exploration of first onsets of mania, schizophrenia spectrum disorders and major depressive disorder in perimenopause. nature mental health 2 (10), pp.1161-1168. (10.1038/s44220-024-00292-4)
- Song, J. et al., 2024. Key subphenotypes of bipolar disorder are differentially associated with polygenic liabilities for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder. Molecular Psychiatry 29 , pp.1941-1950. (10.1038/s41380-024-02448-1)
2023
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2023. Specificity of polygenic signatures across symptom dimensions in bipolar disorder: an analysis of UK Bipolar Disorder Research Network data. The Lancet Psychiatry 10 (8), pp.623-631. (10.1016/S2215-0366(23)00186-4)
- Carr, C. et al., 2023. Sleep and postpartum psychosis: a narrative review of the existing literature. Journal of Clinical Medicine 12 (24) 7550. (10.3390/jcm12247550)
- Casanova Dias, M. et al. 2023. Borderline personality traits are differently associated with postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression episodes in women with bipolar disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 328 , pp.81-86. (10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.124)
- Di Florio, A. , Apsey, C. and Eisenlohr-Moul, T. 2023. Etiologic studies of premenstrual disorders require prospective confirmation of affective cyclicity. JAMA Psychiatry 80 (11) 1175. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.3287)
- Guintivano, J. et al., 2023. Meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies for postpartum depression. The American Journal of Psychiatry 180 (12), pp.884-895. (10.1176/appi.ajp.20230053)
- Lewis, K. et al. 2023. The dynamic interplay between sleep and mood: an intensive longitudinal study of individuals with bipolar disorder. Psychological Medicine 53 (8), pp.3345-3354. (10.1017/S0033291721005377)
- Munk-Olsen, T. et al., 2023. Genetic liability to bipolar disorder and onset of postpartum mental disorders. BMJ Mental Health 26 (1) e300835. (10.1136/bmjment-2023-300835)
- Munk-Olsen, T. et al., 2023. Postpartum and non-postpartum depression: a population-based matched case-control study comparing polygenic risk scores for severe mental disorders. Translational Psychiatry 13 346. (10.1038/s41398-023-02649-2)
- Vaiphei, K. et al., 2023. Formation of a stakeholder group of women with a lived experience of Post-partum Psychoses (PP) – Experience from a perinatal psychiatry service in India. Asian Journal of Psychiatry 84 103592. (10.1016/j.ajp.2023.103592)
- Yang, J. M. K. et al. 2023. Postpartum psychosis: a public involvement perspective across three continents. Archives of Women's Mental Health 26 , pp.831-837. (10.1007/s00737-023-01347-8)
2022
- Lewis, K. J. et al. 2022. Mental health prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic in individuals with bipolar disorder: Insights from prospective longitudinal data. Bipolar Disorders 24 (6), pp.658-666. (10.1111/bdi.13204)
- Palmer, D. et al., 2022. Exome sequencing in bipolar disorder reveals AKAP11 as a risk gene shared with schizophrenia. Nature Genetics (10.1038/s41588-022-01034-x)
- Richards, A. et al. 2022. Genetic liabilities differentiating bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression and phenotypic heterogeneity in bipolar disorder. JAMA Psychiatry 79 (10), pp.1032-1039. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.2594)
2021
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Developmental profile of psychiatric risk associated with voltage-gated cation channel activity. Biological Psychiatry 90 (6)(10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.03.009)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Genetic association of FMRP targets with psychiatric disorders. Molecular Psychiatry 26 , pp.2977-2990. (10.1038/s41380-020-00912-2)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2021. Post-partum psychosis and its association with bipolar disorder in the UK: a case-control study using polygenic risk scores. The Lancet Psychiatry 8 (12), pp.1045-1052. (10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00253-4)
- Jia, X. et al., 2021. Investigating rare pathogenic/likely pathogenic exonic variation in bipolar disorder. Molecular Psychiatry 26 , pp.5239-5250. (10.1038/s41380-020-01006-9)
- Kalman, J. L. et al., 2021. Characterisation of age and polarity at onset in bipolar disorder. The British Journal of Psychiatry 219 (6), pp.659-669. (10.1192/bjp.2021.102)
- Legge, S. et al. 2021. Associations between schizophrenia polygenic liability, symptom dimensions, and cognitive ability in schizophrenia. JAMA Psychiatry 78 (10), pp.1143-1151. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.1961)
- Mullins, N. et al., 2021. Genome-wide association study of more than 40,000 bipolar disorder cases provides new insights into the underlying biology. Nature Genetics 53 , pp.817-829. (10.1038/s41588-021-00857-4)
- Perry, A. et al., 2021. Mood episodes in pregnancy and risk of postpartum recurrence in bipolar disorder: The Bipolar Disorder Research Network Pregnancy Study. Journal of Affective Disorders 294 , pp.714-722. (10.1016/j.jad.2021.07.067)
- Saunders, K. E. A. et al., 2021. The influence of borderline personality traits on clinical outcomes in bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorders 23 (4), pp.368-375. (10.1111/bdi.12978)
2020
- Akingbuwa, W. A. et al., 2020. Genetic associations between childhood psychopathology and adult depression and associated traits in 42 998 individuals. JAMA Psychiatry 77 (7), pp.715-728. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0527)
- Gordon-Smith, K. et al., 2020. Patterns and clinical correlates of lifetime alcohol consumption in women and men with bipolar disorder: Findings from the UK Bipolar Disorder Research Network. Bipolar Disorders 22 (7), pp.731-738. (10.1111/bdi.12905)
- Gordon-Smith, K. et al., 2020. Symptom profile of postpartum and non-postpartum manic episodes in bipolar I disorder: a within-subjects study. Psychiatry Research 284 112748. (10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112748)
- Lewis, K. J. et al. 2020. Comparison of genetic liability for sleep traits among individuals with Bipolar Disorder I or II and control participants. JAMA Psychiatry 77 (3), pp.303-310. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.4079)
- Marwaha, S. et al., 2020. Explaining why childhood abuse is a risk factor for poorer clinical course in bipolar disorder: a path analysis of 923 people with bipolar I disorder. Psychological Medicine 50 (14), pp.2346-2354. (10.1017/S0033291719002411)
- Perry, A. et al., 2020. Adverse childhood experiences and postpartum depression in bipolar disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 263 , pp.661-666. (10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.042)
- Sharma, V. et al., 2020. Primacy of (hypo) mania in the postpartum period: a concept worth considering. Bipolar Disorders 22 (6), pp.553-555. (10.1111/bdi.12988)
- Soda, T. et al., 2020. International consortium on the genetics of electroconvulsive therapy and severe depressive disorders (Gen-ECT-ic). European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 270 , pp.921-932. (10.1007/s00406-019-01087-w)
2019
- Charney, A. W. et al., 2019. Contribution of rare copy number variants to bipolar disorder risk Is limited to schizoaffective cases. Biological Psychiatry 86 (2), pp.110-119. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.12.009)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2019. Dynamic expression of genes associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder across development. Translational Psychiatry 9 74. (10.1038/s41398-019-0405-x)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2019. Stratification of the risk of bipolar disorder recurrences in pregnancy and postpartum. British Journal of Psychiatry 213 (3), pp.542-547. (10.1192/bjp.2018.92)
- Lee, P. H. et al., 2019. Genomic relationships, novel loci, and pleiotropic mechanisms across eight psychiatric disorders. Cell 179 (7), pp.1469-1482.e11. (10.1016/j.cell.2019.11.020)
- Luykx, J. , Di Florio, A. and Bergink, V. 2019. Prevention of infanticide and suicide in the postpartum period: the importance of emergency care. JAMA Psychiatry 76 (12), pp.1221-1222. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.1929)
- Mistry, S. et al. 2019. Genetic risk for bipolar disorder and psychopathology from childhood to early adulthood. Journal of Affective Disorders 246 , pp.633-639. (10.1016/j.jad.2018.12.091)
- Mistry, S. et al. 2019. Investigating associations between genetic risk for bipolar disorder and cognitive functioning in childhood. Journal of Affective Disorders 259 , pp.112-120. (10.1016/j.jad.2019.08.040)
- Perry, A. et al., 2019. Postpartum psychosis in bipolar disorder: no evidence of association with personality traits, cognitive style or affective temperaments. BMC Psychiatry 19 (1) 395. (10.1186/s12888-019-2392-0)
- Serra, F. et al., 2019. Agitated depression in bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorders 21 (6), pp.547-555. (10.1111/bdi.12778)
- Stahl, E. A. et al., 2019. Genome-wide association study identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder. Nature Genetics 51 , pp.793-803. (10.1038/s41588-019-0397-8)
- Yu, H. et al., 2019. Bootstrapping estimates of stability for clusters, observations and model selection. Computational Statistics 34 (1), pp.349-372. (10.1007/s00180-018-0830-y)
2018
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2018. Association between schizophrenia-related polygenic liability and the occurrence and level of mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms in bipolar disorder. JAMA Psychiatry 75 (1), pp.28-35. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.3485)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2018. Progesterone and plasma metabolites in women with and in those without premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Depression and Anxiety 35 (12), pp.1168-1177. (10.1002/da.22827)
- Hidalgo-Mazzei, D. et al., 2018. Treatment-resistant and Multi-therapy resistant criteria for bipolar depression: consensus definition. British Journal of Psychiatry (10.1192/bjp.2018.257)
- Leonenko, G. et al. 2018. A data-driven investigation of relationships between bipolar psychotic symptoms and schizophrenia genome-wide significant genetic loci. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 177 (4), pp.468-475. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32635)
- Lewis, K. et al., 2018. Mania triggered by sleep loss and risk of postpartum psychosis in women with bipolar disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 225 , pp.624-629. (10.1016/j.jad.2017.08.054)
- Meltzer-Brody, S. et al., 2018. Adverse life events increase risk for postpartum psychiatric episodes: a population based epidemiologic study. Depression and Anxiety 35 (2), pp.160-167. (10.1002/da.22697)
- Munk-Olsen, T. et al., 2018. Maternal and infant outcomes associated with lithium use in pregnancy. Lancet Psychiatry 5 (8), pp.644-652. (10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30180-9)
- Ruderfer, D. M. et al., 2018. Genomic dissection of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, including 28 subphenotypes. Cell 173 (7), pp.1705-1715.e16. (10.1016/j.cell.2018.05.046)
2017
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2017. Psychosis and the level of mood incongruence in bipolar disorder are related to genetic liability for schizophrenia. bioRxiv
- Charney, A. W. et al., 2017. Evidence for genetic heterogeneity between clinical subtypes of bipolar disorder. Translational Psychiatry 7 (1), pp.e993. (10.1038/tp.2016.242)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2017. The impact of education, country, race and ethnicity on the self-report of postpartum depression using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Psychological Medicine 47 (5), pp.787-799. (10.1017/S0033291716002087)
- Ferguson, E. H. et al., 2017. HPA axis reactivity to pharmacologic and psychological stressors in euthymic women with histories of postpartum versus major depression. Archives of Women's Mental Health 20 (3), pp.411-420. (10.1007/s00737-017-0716-y)
- Green, E. K. et al., 2017. Genome-wide significant locus for Research Diagnostic Criteria Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 174 (8), pp.767-771. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32572)
- Lara-Cinisomo, S. et al., 2017. Associations between postpartum depression, breastfeeding, and oxytocin levels in Latina mothers. Breastfeeding Medicine 12 (7), pp.436-442. (10.1089/bfm.2016.0213)
- Lewis, K. et al. 2017. Sleep loss as a trigger of mood episodes in bipolar disorder: individual differences based on diagnostic subtype and gender. British Journal of Psychiatry 211 (3), pp.169-174. (10.1192/bjp.bp.117.202259)
- Putnam, K. T. et al., 2017. Clinical phenotypes of perinatal depression and time of symptom onset: analysis of data from an international consortium. The Lancet Psychiatry 4 (6), pp.477-485. (10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30136-0)
- Witt, S. H. et al., 2017. Genome-wide association study of borderline personality disorder reveals genetic overlap with the bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression. Translational Psychiatry 7 e1155.
2016
- Di Florio, A. , Munk-Olsen, T. and Bergink, V. 2016. The birth of a psychiatric orphan disorder: postpartum psychosis [Correspondence]. The Lancet Psychiatry 3 (6), pp.502. (10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30037-2)
- Kimmel, M. C. et al., 2016. Treatment of severe perinatal mood disorders on a specialized perinatal psychiatry inpatient unit. Archives of Women's Mental Health 19 645. (10.1007/s00737-016-0599-3)
- Munk-Olsen, T. et al., 2016. Perinatal psychiatric episodes: a population-based study on treatment incidence and prevalence. Translational Psychiatry 6 e919. (10.1038/tp.2016.190)
- Perry, A. et al., 2016. Adverse childhood life events and postpartum psychosis in bipolar disorder. Journal of affective disorders 205 , pp.69-72. (10.1016/j.jad.2016.06.061)
- Song, J. et al., 2016. Genome-wide association study identifies SESTD1 as a novel risk gene for lithium-responsive bipolar disorder. Molecular Psychiatry 2016 , pp.1290-1297. (10.1038/mp.2015.165)
2015
- Castro, V. M. et al., 2015. Validation of electronic health record phenotyping of bipolar disorder cases and controls. American Journal of Psychiatry 172 (4), pp.363-372. (10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14030423)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2015. Bipolar disorder, miscarriage, and termination. Bipolar Disorders 17 (1), pp.102-105. (10.1111/bdi.12217)
- Di Florio, A. and Meltzer-Brody, S. 2015. Is postpartum depression a distinct disorder?. Current Psychiatry Reports 17 (10) 76. (10.1007/s11920-015-0617-6)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2015. Smoking and postpartum psychosis. Bipolar Disorders 17 (5), pp.572-573. (10.1111/bdi.12314)
- Pigato, G. et al., 2015. Early hyperprolactinaemia in acute psychiatric inpatients: a cross-sectional study. Journal of Psychopathology 21 (3), pp.226-230.
- Singh, S. et al., 2015. Affective temperaments and concomitant alcohol use disorders in bipolar disorder. Journal of affective disorders 186 , pp.226-231. (10.1016/j.jad.2015.07.027)
2014
- Di Florio, A. , Craddock, N. J. and van den Bree, M. B. 2014. Alcohol misuse in bipolar disorder. A systematic review and meta-analysis of comorbidity rates. European Psychiatry 29 (3), pp.117-24. (10.1016/j.eurpsy.2013.07.004)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2014. Postpartum bipolar depression in a clinical sample of 1721 parous women with mood disorders [Conference Abstract]. Bipolar Disorders 16 (S1), pp.62-62. (10.1111/bdi.12188)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2014. Mood disorders and parity - A clue to the aetiology of the postpartum trigger. Journal of affective disorders 152-15 , pp.334-339. (10.1016/j.jad.2013.09.034)
2013
- Di Florio, A. and Craddock, N. J. 2013. The genomics revolution in psychiatry: a lesson from bipolar disorder. Dusunen Adam 26 (2), pp.119-121. (10.5350/DAJPN20132602001)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2013. Perinatal episodes across the mood disorder spectrum. JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2), pp.168-175. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.279)
- Di Florio, A. , Smith, S. and Jones, I. R. 2013. Postpartum psychosis. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist 15 (3), pp.145-150. (10.1111/tog.12041)
2012
- Di Florio, A. 2012. Bipolar disorder in pregnancy and the postpartum. PhD Thesis , Cardiff University.
2011
- Smith, D. J. et al. 2011. Beating bipolar: exploratory trial of a novel internet-based psychoeducational treatment for bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorders 13 (5-6), pp.571-577. (10.1111/j.1399-5618.2011.00949.x)
2010
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2010. Affective temperaments across the bipolar-unipolar spectrum: examination of the TEMPS-A in 927 patients and controls. Journal of affective disorders 123 (1-3), pp.42-51. (10.1016/j.jad.2009.09.020)
- Di Florio, A. and Jones, I. R. 2010. Is sex important? Gender differences in bipolar disorder. International Review of Psychiatry 22 (5), pp.437-452. (10.3109/09540261.2010.514601)
2009
- Pigato, G. et al., 2009. Studio naturalistico di confronto tra due strategie di dosaggio iniziale di duloxetina in un contesto clinico “real world". Rivista di Psichiatria 44 (6), pp.1-9. (10.1708/468.5538)
2008
- Perini, G. I. , Di Florio, A. and Pavan, C. 2008. Major depressive disorders and coronary artery disease: a review on common pathophysiological pathways. Clinical Neuropsychiatry 5 (3), pp.151-161.
Articles
- Akingbuwa, W. A. et al., 2020. Genetic associations between childhood psychopathology and adult depression and associated traits in 42 998 individuals. JAMA Psychiatry 77 (7), pp.715-728. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0527)
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2023. Specificity of polygenic signatures across symptom dimensions in bipolar disorder: an analysis of UK Bipolar Disorder Research Network data. The Lancet Psychiatry 10 (8), pp.623-631. (10.1016/S2215-0366(23)00186-4)
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2018. Association between schizophrenia-related polygenic liability and the occurrence and level of mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms in bipolar disorder. JAMA Psychiatry 75 (1), pp.28-35. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.3485)
- Allardyce, J. et al. 2017. Psychosis and the level of mood incongruence in bipolar disorder are related to genetic liability for schizophrenia. bioRxiv
- Apsey, C. , Di Florio, A. and Stawarz, K. 2024. Developing a mood and menstrual tracking app for people with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A user-centered design study. JMIR Formative Research 8 e59333. (10.2196/59333)
- Bergink, V. et al., 2025. Postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder: Review of neurobiology and expert consensus statement on classification. Biological Psychiatry (10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.10.016)
- Bramante, A. and Di Florio, A. 2025. A case–control study of filicide/infanticide in 90 mothers. Archives of Women's Mental Health 28 , pp.415-421. (10.1007/s00737-023-01401-5)
- Carr, C. et al., 2023. Sleep and postpartum psychosis: a narrative review of the existing literature. Journal of Clinical Medicine 12 (24) 7550. (10.3390/jcm12247550)
- Casanova Dias, M. et al. 2023. Borderline personality traits are differently associated with postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression episodes in women with bipolar disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 328 , pp.81-86. (10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.124)
- Castro, V. M. et al., 2015. Validation of electronic health record phenotyping of bipolar disorder cases and controls. American Journal of Psychiatry 172 (4), pp.363-372. (10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14030423)
- Charney, A. W. et al., 2017. Evidence for genetic heterogeneity between clinical subtypes of bipolar disorder. Translational Psychiatry 7 (1), pp.e993. (10.1038/tp.2016.242)
- Charney, A. W. et al., 2019. Contribution of rare copy number variants to bipolar disorder risk Is limited to schizoaffective cases. Biological Psychiatry 86 (2), pp.110-119. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.12.009)
- Chiang, W. et al., 2025. Heterogeneity analysis provides evidence for a genetically homogeneous subtype of bipolar-disorder. PLoS ONE 20 (1) e0314288. (10.1371/journal.pone.0314288)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Developmental profile of psychiatric risk associated with voltage-gated cation channel activity. Biological Psychiatry 90 (6)(10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.03.009)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2019. Dynamic expression of genes associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder across development. Translational Psychiatry 9 74. (10.1038/s41398-019-0405-x)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Genetic association of FMRP targets with psychiatric disorders. Molecular Psychiatry 26 , pp.2977-2990. (10.1038/s41380-020-00912-2)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2017. The impact of education, country, race and ethnicity on the self-report of postpartum depression using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Psychological Medicine 47 (5), pp.787-799. (10.1017/S0033291716002087)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2018. Progesterone and plasma metabolites in women with and in those without premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Depression and Anxiety 35 (12), pp.1168-1177. (10.1002/da.22827)
- Di Florio, A. , Apsey, C. and Eisenlohr-Moul, T. 2023. Etiologic studies of premenstrual disorders require prospective confirmation of affective cyclicity. JAMA Psychiatry 80 (11) 1175. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.3287)
- Di Florio, A. and Craddock, N. J. 2013. The genomics revolution in psychiatry: a lesson from bipolar disorder. Dusunen Adam 26 (2), pp.119-121. (10.5350/DAJPN20132602001)
- Di Florio, A. , Craddock, N. J. and van den Bree, M. B. 2014. Alcohol misuse in bipolar disorder. A systematic review and meta-analysis of comorbidity rates. European Psychiatry 29 (3), pp.117-24. (10.1016/j.eurpsy.2013.07.004)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2013. Perinatal episodes across the mood disorder spectrum. JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2), pp.168-175. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.279)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2019. Stratification of the risk of bipolar disorder recurrences in pregnancy and postpartum. British Journal of Psychiatry 213 (3), pp.542-547. (10.1192/bjp.2018.92)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2010. Affective temperaments across the bipolar-unipolar spectrum: examination of the TEMPS-A in 927 patients and controls. Journal of affective disorders 123 (1-3), pp.42-51. (10.1016/j.jad.2009.09.020)
- Di Florio, A. and Jones, I. R. 2010. Is sex important? Gender differences in bipolar disorder. International Review of Psychiatry 22 (5), pp.437-452. (10.3109/09540261.2010.514601)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2014. Postpartum bipolar depression in a clinical sample of 1721 parous women with mood disorders [Conference Abstract]. Bipolar Disorders 16 (S1), pp.62-62. (10.1111/bdi.12188)
- Di Florio, A. et al. 2015. Bipolar disorder, miscarriage, and termination. Bipolar Disorders 17 (1), pp.102-105. (10.1111/bdi.12217)
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Thesis
- Di Florio, A. 2012. Bipolar disorder in pregnancy and the postpartum. PhD Thesis , Cardiff University.
Websites
- Koromina, M. et al., 2024. Fine-mapping genomic loci refines bipolar disorder risk genes. [Online].medRxiv: OpenRxiv. (10.1101/2024.02.12.24302716)Available at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.12.24302716.
Research
Research Funding
I have secured over £10 million in competitive research funding as Principal or Co-Investigator from prestigious national and international funders, including the European Research Council, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
Current Grants
2021-2026 European Research Council Starting Grant, "Genetic Architecture of Sex Steroid-related Psychiatric Disorders" (PI) – €1,500,000
2021-2026 Medical Research Council, "Perimenopause and Risk of Psychiatric Disorders: A Longitudinal, Population-Based Study" (PI) – £534,657
2025-2030 Health and Care Research Wales, "The National Centre for Mental Health" (Co-I) – £2,999,894
2025-2027 Medical Research Council, "Allosteric Modulators of Extrasynaptic δ-GABAA Receptors for the Treatment of Postpartum Depression" (Co-PI) – £2,957,943
Completed Grants
2020-2025 Health and Care Research Wales, "The National Centre for Mental Health" (Co-I) – £4,950,000
2021 Global Challenge Research Fund Small Projects, "A Cross-Cultural Study of Motherhood and Mental Health" (PI) – £37,734
2019-2022 Wellcome Trust, "Feasibility of a Large-Scale, International, Clinical-Genetic Study of Postpartum Psychosis" (PI) – £89,126
2019-2021 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Award, "Systematic Investigation of the Genetic Susceptibility to Sleep Disturbance in Bipolar Disorder" (PI) – $70,000
2018-2021 Medical Research Council Project Grant, "Individualising the Risk of Recurrence for Women with Bipolar Disorder in the Perinatal Period" (Co-I) – £264,655
2014-2017 European Commission Marie Curie Actions International Outgoing Fellowship, "Postpartum BiD - Improving Prediction of the Triggering of Bipolar Disorder Episodes by Childbirth" (PI) – €282,109
2015-2016 United States National Science Foundation - Division of Mathematical Sciences, "Interactive Ensemble Clustering for Mixed Data with Application to Mood Disorders" (Co-I) – $99,998
2010-2012 Health and Care Research Wales, Welsh Assembly Government Health Studentship Award, "A Prospective Study of Bipolar Disorder in Pregnancy and the Postpartum" (Co-PI) – £58,585
Biography
Current posts
2021- Professor of Psychiatry, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
2017- Consultant Psychiatrist, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Cardiff
2016- Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
Other Roles and Responsibilities
2025- Clinical lead, Cardiff University Psychiatry Service
2019- Chair, International Postpartum Psychosis Consortium
2019- Clinical Lead and Outreach officer, Bipolar Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
2019- Steering committee member, Bipolar Disorder Sequencing Consortium
2017- Clinical Lead for Undergraduate Psychiatry, Cardiff University Medical School
Previous posts
2017- CLINICAL SENIOR LECTURER, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience, Cardiff University
2014-2016 MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE FELLOW, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
2014 SPECIALIST IN PSYCHIATRY, Cardiff & Vale University Health Board
2013-2014 CLINICAL RESEARCH FELLOW, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences
2010-2012 PHD STUDENT, Cardiff University
2009 VISITING CLINICAL RESEARCHER, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics
2006-2010 RESIDENT IN PSYCHIATRY, Clinica Psichiatrica-Azienda Ospedaliera, Padova, Italy
2005 VISITING RESEARCH STUDENT, Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine Berlin-Buch, Neuronal Stem Cells group, Germany
Education
2013 Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
2010 Specialist in Psychiatry, Clinica Psichiatrica- Azienda Ospedaliera USLL 16, Padua, Italy
2005 Doctor of Medicine, Clinica Psichiatrica- Azienda Ospedaliera USLL 16, Padua, Italy
Contact Details
Research themes
Specialisms
- Psychiatry
- Women’s Health
- Psychiatric Genetics
- Gender, health and well-being
