MRCPsych on the Go: Revision Essentials

How do you put a number on a mind, and how far should you trust it? In 1904, a problem in the Paris school system led to the first practical intelligence test, and the debate it started has never really ended.

In this episode, we explore the psychometric approach to intelligence testing. We follow Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon’s scale, mental age, William Stern’s ratio intelligence quotient and Lewis Terman’s Stanford-Binet, and we look at the eugenic history behind early testing. 

We then meet David Wechsler’s deviation IQ, with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, and explain why tests are re-normed because of the Flynn effect. We cover the structure of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Raven’s Progressive Matrices and eductive ability. We then look at the cognitive engines behind test performance: mental speed measured by reaction time and inspection time, working memory, attention and executive control. 

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, psychology students, medical students and anyone who has ever wondered what an IQ score really measures. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Paper A syllabus (updated for January 2027), sections 1.5.2 and 1.5.4, and the ICD-11 classification of disorders of intellectual development.

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If you are good at maths, are you more likely to be good at vocabulary too? In 1904, a former army officer turned psychologist set out to test exactly that, and his answer still shapes how we think about the mind today.

In this episode, we open our series on intelligence with the question of what intelligence is. We cover Charles Spearman’s two-factor theory, the g factor and the positive manifold, and how factor analysis works. We then meet Louis Thurstone’s primary mental abilities, 6fluid (Gf) and crystallised (Gc) intelligence, and John Carroll’s three-stratum model. We preview the Flynn effect, and look at the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT). 

We then link this to clinical practice through the National Adult Reading Test and the estimation of premorbid intelligence. 

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, psychology students, medical students and anyone curious about what an IQ score really means.

 Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Paper A syllabus (updated for January 2027), sections 1.5.1, 1.5.3 and 1.5.5, and the ICD-11 classification of disorders of intellectual development.

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Why would someone punch, kick or leap out of bed in the middle of a dream, and why might it be a warning sign of Parkinson's disease years later?

In this episode, we close our five-part series on sleep disorders with REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD), the most important early warning sign in sleep medicine. We tell the story of Carlos Schenck and Mark Mahowald, who first described the condition. We explore the brainstem circuit in the pons that normally paralyses us during REM sleep, and why it fails. We cover the link between isolated RBD and the synucleinopathies, Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy, and why alpha-synuclein damage in the brainstem means the sleep problem often comes first. We also cover antidepressant-induced RBD, diagnosis with video polysomnography, and management with safety measures, melatonin and clonazepam. Finally, we cover nightmare disorder and imagery rehearsal therapy, and recurrent isolated sleep paralysis.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, medical students and anyone who has ever woken mid-dream, mid-motion. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, section 3.5.1.2 on neural circuits, and the ICD-11 classification of sleep-wake disorders.

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Why can someone walk, talk, or even drive while their brain is still partly asleep?

In this episode, we explore the disorders of arousal from non-REM sleep: confusional arousals, sleepwalking, sleep terrors (also known as night terrors), and sleep-related eating disorder. We look at the neuroscience of "local sleep," where the motor cortex wakes while the frontal cortex and hippocampus stay in slow-wave sleep, explaining the amnesia and confusion. We cover genetics and family risk, triggers including sleep deprivation and obstructive sleep apnoea, and how to tell these episodes apart from nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy. We also cover NICE guidance on when to reassure and when to refer, scheduled awakenings, clonazepam, and the remarkable case of Kenneth Parks, the Canadian man acquitted of murder on the grounds of sleepwalking.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, medical students and any parent who has ever found their child wandering the house at night. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, section 3.5.1.2 on neural circuits, and the ICD-11 classification of sleep-wake disorders. 

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What if you slept twenty hours a day for weeks at a time, then woke up with barely any memory of it?

In this episode, we explore Kleine-Levin syndrome, the rare recurrent hypersomnia nicknamed Sleeping Beauty syndrome, affecting roughly one to five people per million. We cover what an active episode looks like, and the classic three Hs of hypersomnia, hyperphagia and hypersexuality. We look at what brain imaging reveals about the circuits involved, with reduced blood flow in the thalamus and hypothalamus, the brain regions that regulate sleep, appetite and behaviour. We also cover the genetic and immune clues to its cause, the differential diagnosis, why lithium is used despite limited evidence, the good long-term outlook, and where patients and families can find support.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, medical students and anyone who enjoys a strange corner of clinical medicine. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, section 3.5.1.2 on neural circuits, and the ICD-11 classification of sleep-wake disorders. 

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What happens in the brain when a burst of laughter makes your knees give way, while you stay completely awake?

In this episode, we explore narcolepsy through the lens of the brain's sleep-wake circuitry. We cover the classic tetrad of excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations, and the difference between narcolepsy type 1 and type 2. We tell the story of Emmanuel Mignot's decade-long hunt through a colony of narcoleptic dogs, and how it led to the discovery of orexin, also called hypocretin. 

We then explore how losing orexin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus destabilises the switch between sleep and wakefulness. We also cover diagnosis with polysomnography and NICE-guided treatment, from modafinil and stimulants to sodium oxybate and solriamfetol.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, medical students and anyone curious about the science of sleep. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, section 3.5.1.2 on neural circuits, and the ICD-11 classification of sleep-wake disorders.

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If you were told, right now, that you could lie down and fall asleep within five minutes, would your body actually believe you? For most people with insomnia, the honest answer is no, and that gap sits at the centre of the entire disorder.

In this episode, we open a five part series on sleep disorders, classified according to ICD-11. We cover how insomnia disorder is actually defined and diagnosed, the two-process model of normal sleep, the hyperarousal model and Spielman's 3P model of how insomnia develops and persists, what investigations are genuinely useful, and current NICE-guided management, from sleep hygiene and CBT-I through to the Z-drugs, melatonin, and the newest licensed option, daridorexant.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychiatry trainees, medical students and anyone who has ever lain awake exhausted but unable to switch off. 

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, paragraph 1.1.10, and the ICD-11 classification of sleep-wake disorders.

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In 1780s Paris, patients sat around a wooden tub filled with iron filings and bottles of "magnetised" water, gripping rods that protruded from it, waiting to convulse.

The man who invented this spectacle believed he'd discovered a new force of nature. He hadn't, but he'd stumbled onto something real anyway.

In this episode, we close our series on states and levels of awareness with two ways of deliberately altering consciousness: hypnosis and meditation. We trace hypnosis from Mesmer's showmanship through Charcot's clinic to the modern scientific debate over what it actually is, then turn to meditation's measurable effects on the brain and its established clinical uses.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision and anyone curious about how much of the mind can be deliberately, rather than accidentally, altered.

Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, paragraph 1.1.10.

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When a mother kills her own child while acutely mentally ill, is that murder, or is it an illness? The mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case has put that exact question back in the headlines.

Part 2 of 2. In our last episode, we covered the clinical picture of postpartum psychosis itself. In this episode, we follow up with the legal side: the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts, the insanity defence and the M'Naghten rules, England and Wales's Infanticide Act 1938 and Scotland's different approach, a landmark UK case that shows how this plays out closer to home, and a proper look at automatism, the defence we teased last time.

This episode is written for absolutely anyone, and it's especially relevant for psychiatry trainees covering forensic psychiatry and the perinatal curriculum. 

If you haven't heard episode 40 on what postpartum psychosis actually is, we'd recommend starting there first.

 Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, paragraph 12.1. 

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What if the same hormones that helped grow and deliver a healthy baby could, in a small number of women, also trigger a complete break from reality within days of giving birth?

Part 1 of 2; Postpartum psychosis has been all over the headlines because of the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts, so in this episode, we step outside our usual syllabus order to explain the illness itself properly. 

We cover what postpartum psychosis actually is, how it differs from the much more common baby blues and postnatal depression, what causes it, and what NICE guidance says about recognising and treating it, including the evidence behind lithium. 

In part 2, our very next episode, we follow up with the legal side of the Clancy case itself.

 This episode is written for absolutely anyone, new parents, family members, healthcare professionals, psychiatry trainees, or simply anyone who's been following the news. 

It's aligned with NICE guideline on antenatal and postnatal mental health, and it's relevant to the MRCPsych perinatal psychiatry curriculum too.

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