Dr Tiago da Silva Costa

Senior Research Fellow

I’m a specialist trainee in general adult psychiatry, currently out of programme for a clinical PhD funded by the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre. Over the last years I have developed a research interest in difficult-to- treat depression (DTD). I am interested in exploring the mechanisms by which DTD worsens clinical outcomes when comorbid with other pathologies. The transdiagnostic benefits of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) on mood and quality of life make it an obvious area of focus. My research has been on the transdiagnostic benefits of VNS to mood, fatigue and quality of life, including mechanistic exploration. Clinically, I work part-time for the Regional Affective Disorders Service (RADS), a tertiary level NHS service for people with difficult to treat mood disorders, part of the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust, where I help run the VNS clinic for DTD.

 

PhD Project

An exploration of vagus nerve stimulation as a mechanistically informed treatment of depression in heart failure

 

Conferences

  • Oct 2024, Newcastle BRC Welcome Event, oral presentation – “Tiago is doing a clinical PhD and it’s going absolutely fine.”
  • Oct 2024, FMS Mental Health, Dementia and Neurodegeneration (MHDN) Theme Town Hall Event, oral presentation – “Exploring vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment of depression in heart failure”
  • Sep 2024, Close-NIT / Neuromod+ Neurotechnology (CNN) meeting, oral presentation – “Respiratory-gated transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) in healthy volunteers”
  • Sep 2024, BAP Affective Disorders Module 2024, oral presentation – “Managing depression and bipolar disorder in the face of (physical) comorbidity”
  • July 2024, BAP Summer Meeting 2024, poster – “A Delphi depression treatment pathway consensus: first steps”
  • July 2024, BAP Summer Meeting 2024, poster – “The Effects of At-Home Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (taVNS) on Heart Rate Variability and Cognition in Healthy Volunteers”
  • July 2024, BAP Summer Meeting 2024, poster – “Cardiovascular mortality associated with depression, co-morbidities and antidepressant treatment – preliminary results from a systematic review and meta-analysis”
  • July 2024, Great Northern Psychiatry School, oral presentation – “Affective disorders”
  • March 2024, NuTH / NIHP Grand Rounds, oral presentation – “Impact of VNS on quality of life: role of autonomic function and inflammation” Feb 2024, UKRI Neurotechnology Conference, oral presentation – “End-user involvement in Neurotechnologies”

 

Publications

  • Amparo Güemes, Tiago da Silva Costa and Tamar Makin. Foundational guidelines for enhancing neurotechnology research and development through end-user involvement. Journal of Neural Engineering (2025), Jan. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/adac0d.
  • Pinto da Costa, M., Belinati Loureiro, V., Fung, P., Gereš, N., Ransing, R., Costa, T. World Psychiatry Exchange Program 2.0: Enhancing Collaborations Between Early Career Psychiatrists. Acad Psychiatry (2025), doi: 10.1007/s40596-024-02105-3
  • Clifford, Harry; Paranathala, Menaka; Wang, Yujiang; Thomas, Rhys; da Silva-Costa, Tiago; Duncan, John; Taylor, Peter. Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) for epilepsy – a narrative review of factors predictive of response. Epilepsia (2024), doi: 10.1111/epi.18153
  • Demyttenaere K, Costa T, Kavakbasi E, Jiang M, Scheltens A, Dibué M, Hall BE, Andrade P, R. McAllister-Williams RH, Baune BT, Young AH. Baseline characteristics of a European patient population with difficult-to-treat depression (RESTORE-LIFE) treated with adjunctive vagus nerve stimulation. J Affect Disord, 2024 Jan 1:344:284-291. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.10.054
  • Clifford, Harry; Paranathala, Menaka; Wang, Yujiang; Thomas, Rhys; da Silva-Costa, Tiago; Duncan, John; Taylor, Peter. Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) for epilepsy – a narrative review of factors predictive of response. Epilepsia (2024), doi: 10.1111/epi.18153
  • Costa T, Taylor A, Black F, Hill S, McAllister-Williams RH, Gallagher P, Watson S. Autonomic dysregulation, cognition and fatigue in people with depression and in active and healthy controls. BJ Psych Open, 2023. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2023.68
  • Costa T, Rushton S, Watson S, Ng W-F. Depression in Sjögren’s syndrome mediates the relationship between pain, fatigue, sleepiness and overall quality of life. Rheumatol Immunol Res, 2023. doi: 10.2478/rir-2023-0012
  • McAllister-Williams RH & Costa T. Difficult-to-treat depression and the role of vagus nerve stimulation. Psychiatr Ann, 2022. doi: 10.3928/00485713-20220622-01
  • Costa T, Menzat B, Engelthaler T, Fell B, Franarin T, Roque G, Wei Y, Zhang X, McAllister-Williams RH. The burden associated with, and management of, difficult-to-treat depression in patients under specialist psychiatric care in the UK. J Psychopharmacol, 2022. doi: 10.1177/02698811221090628
  • Burgess J, Costa T, Cousins D. Clinical assessment and investigation in psychiatry. Medicine, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.mpmed.2020.08.009

 

Awards & Nominations

  • April 2024, NIHR Newcastle BRC Interdisciplinary Research Project grant
  • April 2024, British Association for Psychopharmacology Robert Kerwin International Conference Bursary
  • July 2023, 1st place Royal College of Psychiatrist International Congress Rapid Fire Presentations
  • February 2023, Closed-loop Neural Interface Technologies (CloseNIT) Network grant awarded by UKRI EPSRC
  • October 2022, Newcastle University Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, Small Grant Scheme
  • April 2022, Royal College of Psychiatrists Academic Faculty Grant
  • January 2022, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Charity / Joint Research Executive Scientific Committee grant
  • December 2021, Mental Health Foundation grant
  • October 2017, Royal College of Psychiatrists Poster prize

 

Other

July 2023, Neuromod+ Network grant (UKRI EPSRC and MRC funds) for Development of Patient and Public Involvement for Neurotechnologies 2023/2024, Member of the organising team for the WPA Exchange Programme.