Macbeth’s doctor declared himself unable to cure the “mind diseased”, and it remains a challenge to understand and treat mental and neurological conditions.
Susan Iversen, who has died aged 84, was a neuropsychologist. She saw the need to start with the fundamentals – understanding how different brain areas, and the complex networks of chemical signals that communicate between them, exert their impact on behaviour.
Combining basic science with investigations into the impact of drugs on the brain, she was one of the pioneers of the interdisciplinary field of neuropsychopharmacology.
At the University of Cambridge in the 1970s she helped to show that the different behavioural effects of drugs such as amphetamines had their basis in different regions of the brain served by the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Years later these studies turned out to be relevant to understanding conditions such as ADHD and substance abuse, involving the dopamine pathways that mediate a sense of reward.
Iversen trained and inspired a generation of neuroscientists who have gone on to develop the field of neuropsychopharmacology. Her team deployed newly available agents to modify the activities of specific neural pathways, measuring the effects on the behaviour of laboratory animals in an effort to develop models that could be used to explore the potential of new treatments for human conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, as well as working on drug trials with human patients.
In the early 80s Iversen collaborated with the Swedish neuroscientist Anders Björklund to investigate the possibility of using transplants of dopamine-producing cells to reverse Parkinson-like symptoms in rats.
Wanting to apply her skills more directly to the treatment of clinical conditions, in 1983 she opted to move with her husband, the neuropharmacologist Leslie Iversen, to the neuroscience research centre of the pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp and Dohme in Harlow, Essex, of which Leslie was the founding director.
As director of behavioural pharmacology at the centre, Susan participated in the identification of a number of promising leads. However, the enormous challenge of translating basic discoveries into treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease led to the closure of the unit a decade later.
Returning to academic life in 1993, Iversen was appointed head of the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, where she supported work in human cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology. During her time in Oxford, her effectiveness as an administrator came to the fore.
She was appointed pro-vice-chancellor for research in 1998, and subsequently pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resource allocation (2000-05), one of the most influential positions in the university.
She left another legacy from this period in the form of substantial textbooks, notably Dopamine Handbook (with Leslie Iversen, Stephen Dunnett and Björklund) and Introduction to Neuropsychopharmacology (with Leslie Iversen, Floyd Bloom and Robert Roth), both published in 2009.
Born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Susan grew up in the nearby market town of Princes Risborough. The only child of Edith (nee Vincent) and Jack Kibble, who ran a hardware store in the town, Susan helped out in the shop from an early age, her aptititude for maths soon becoming apparent.
She won a place at Wycombe high school in High Wycombe, where an inspirational teacher, Miss Maude, steered her towards applying for Cambridge as the first in her family to attend university.
Typically generous in recognising a key mentor, Susan remained in touch for the rest of her former teacher’s life. She was admitted to Girton College, Cambridge, in 1958 and studied natural sciences, specialising in zoology.
She graduated in 1961 and married Leslie, a student contemporary, who sparked her interest in brain chemistry. Both stayed in Cambridge to do PhDs, Sue opting to join the psychology department, where she worked on experimental studies of the cerebral cortex.
Unusually for an academic couple at the time, they were both successful in obtaining post-doctoral positions at the same institutions in the US: first at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and then at Harvard University. While at NIH, Susan undertook work with the distinguished neuropsychologist Mortimer Mishkin that began to map areas in the frontal lobes of the brain underlying an animal’s ability to respond flexibly to changing circumstances.
On their return to the UK in 1966, Iversen took up her position in the psychology department at Cambridge. Trevor Robbins, emeritus professor of cognitive neuroscience there and former head of the department, first encountered the “inspiring and enthusiastic” Iversen, often strikingly dressed while en route to a college dinner, when she gave him tutorials in the subject in his second year as an undergraduate. He went on to do his PhD under her supervision, and recalls her “tremendous networking skills”, inviting lab members to dinners at her home to meet the great and the good of neuroscience, many of whom she had befriended during her post-doctoral stay in the US.
Iversen retired from the psychology chair at Oxford in 2005, but continued to direct a diverse range of projects for the university.
A safe pair of hands in caretaking roles, she was the inaugural director of the interdisciplinary James Martin 21st Century School (now Oxford Martin School) (2005- 06) and the interim director of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (2010-11).
Her roles as a “scientific good citizen” are too numerous to list, but included the presidency of the British Association for Psychopharmacology (which later bestowed on her its lifetime achievement award), and board membership of numerous research councils, government committees and advisory bodies. In 2005 she was appointed CBE.
One of the new initiatives that came about while she was Oxford’s pro-VC was the Oxford centre for functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain (FMRIB, now the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging), which opened in 1998. Irene Tracey, its former director and now Oxford’s vice-chancellor, found Iversen an invaluable source of advice on career decisions.
In November 2023 Tracey officiated at the opening of a new building named after Iversen on the Oxford Science Park, the first on the site to be named after a female scientist. “She gave an example of how to be a female leader who didn’t compromise on excellence, but who also could be a very loving, warm, compassionate, kind person,” said Tracey. “If you’re going to have a role model, then it’s pretty good to have one that’s like that.”
Leslie died in 2020. Susan is survived by their children Amy and Ben, and by seven grandchildren. Another daughter, Emily, died in infancy.
