Telephone: 020 7911 5000 ext: 2173
Email: towella@wmin.ac.uk

Research Interests

Psychophysiology of pain; cognitive electrophysiology; eating behaviours; enhanced health and positive well-being

General Information

Tony has a PhD in psychopharmacology and joined the University of Westminster in 1992 following a period with the MRC external staff at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Since then, he has collaborated with colleagues at The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and has held grants from the MRC, HEFCE, and ESF. His current research concerns the social and biological factors associated with pain experience, the psychophysiology of pre attentive processing and factors associated with the development and treatment of eating disorders. He is also involved in a number of projects investigating student lifestyle factors and health. For the past few years Tony has been involved in the training of health psychologists and is course leader for the part-time evening MSc Health Psychology programme and Chair of the British Psychological Society, Board of Examiners in Health Psychology.

Publications

Jump to books or published conference abstracts.

Recent Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

HIXENBAUGH, P., DEWART, H & TOWELL, T. (in press). What enables students to succeed?  An investigation of socio- demographic, health, and student experience variables. Psychodynamic Practice.

McMULLEN, M,K., SHINE, G., WHITEHOUSE, J.M & TOWELL, A. (2011) Habitual coffee and tea drinkers experienced increases in blood pressure after consuming low to moderate doses of caffeine; these increases were larger upright than in the supine posture. Food & Funct., 2, 197-203.

SPACKMAN, L., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. (2010). Somatosensory discrimination: an intracranial event-related potential study of children with refractory epilepsy. Brain Research, 1310, 68-76

McMULLEN, M,K., SHINE, G., WHITEHOUSE, J.M & TOWELL, A. (2010). The Finometer can function as a stand alone instrument in blood pressure variability studies and does not require support equipment to determine breathing frequency. Journal of Blood Pressure Monitoring, 15(4), 220-224

BROCK, C., WHITEHOUSE, J., TEWFIK,  I.  & TOWELL, T. (2010) American skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora): an ancient remedy for today’s anxiety? British Journal of Wellbeing 1 (4), 25-30.

SWAMI, V., AIRS, N., CHOUHAN, B., PADILLA LEON, M. A., & TOWELL, T. (2009). Are there ethnic differences in positive body image among female British undergraduates? European Psychologist, 14(4), 288-296.

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M. & TOWELL, T. (2009) Can illusory deviant stimuli be used as attentional distractors to record vMMN in a passive three stimulus oddball paradigm? Experimental Brain Research, 197(2), 153-161

SWAMI, V., AIRS, N., CHOUHAN, B., PADILLA LEON, M.A., TOWELL, T. (in press). Are there ethnic differences in positive body image among female British undergraduates? European Psychologist

ELANDER, J., FOX,P and TOWELL, A. Competence-based training and assessment by portfolio in postgraduate applied psychology: reflections on the health psychology model. Psychology Learning & Teaching, in press.

BAKER, D., EARLE, M., MEDFORD,N., SIERRA, M., TOWELL, A & DAVID A. (2007). Illness Perceptions in Depersonalisation Disorder: Testing an Illness Attribution Model. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 14, 105-116

SPACKMAN, L., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. (2007). Effects of stimulus frequency and duration on somatosensory discrimination responses. Experimental Brain Research, 177, 21-30

SPACKMAN, L., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. (2006). Identification and characterisation of somatosensory off responses. Brain Research, 1114, 53-62

LIASIS, A., NISCHAL, K., WALTERS, B., THOMPSON, D.,  HARDY, S., TOWELL, A., DUNAWAY, D., JONES, B., EVANS, R and HAYWARD, R. (2006). Monitoring visual function in children with craniosynostosis - a comparison of three methods. Archives of Ophthalmology, 124(8), 1119-1126

LIASIS, A., BOYD, S., BAMIOU & TOWELL, A. (2005)  Evidence for a neurophysiologic auditory deficit in children with benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes. Journal of Neural Transmission, 42(10), 378 -389

SINGH, S., LIASIS A., RAJPUT K., TOWELL A & LUXON, L. (2004) Event-Related Potentials in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Patients. Ear & Hearing, 25(6), 598-610

WILLIAMS, D., GOLDING, J., PHILLIPS, K. & TOWELL, A. (2004) Perceived control, locus of control and preparatory information: Effects on the perception of a painful stimulus. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 1681-1691

LIASIS, A., BOYD, S., RIVERA-GAXIOLA, M. & TOWELL, A. (2003) Speech and non speech processing in hemispherectomised children: an event related potential study. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 665-673.

BAKER TOWELL, D. & TOWELL, A. (2003) An investigation into the quality of life, psychological distress and social competence in children with Cloacal Exstrophy. Journal of Urology, 169, 1850-1853.

LIASIS, A., BAMIOU, D., CAMPBELL, P., BOYD, S., SIRIMANA, T. & TOWELL, A. (2003) Auditory event-related potentials in the assessment of auditory processing disorders: A pilot study. Neuropediatrics, 34, 23-29.

BALDERSON, N. and TOWELL, A. (2003) The prevalence and predictors of psychological distress in men with prostrate cancer who are seeking support. British Journal of Health Psychology, 8, 125-134.

GORDON, A., GANESAN, V., TOWELL, A. and KIRKHAM, F. (2002) Activity limitation following stroke in childhood, Journal of Child Neurology, 17 (6), 429-434.

JAHANSHAHI, M., DIRNBERGER, G., LIASIS, A., TOWELL, A. and BOYD, S. (2001) Does the prefrontal cortex contribute to movement-related potentials? Recordings from subdural electrodes. Neurocase, 7 495-501.

SONNAK, C. and TOWELL, T. (2001) The impostor phenomenon in British university students: relationships between self-esteem, mental health, parental bonding and socioeconomic status. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 863-874.

BAKER TOWELL, D., WOODFORD, S., REID, S., ROONEY, B. and TOWELL, A. (2001) Compliance and outcome in treatment resistant anorexia and bulimia: a retrospective study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 40, 189-195.

LIASIS, A., TOWELL, T., ALHO, K. and BOYD, S. (2001) Intracranial identification of an electric frontal-cortex response to auditory stimulus change (a case study). Cognitive Brain Research, 11, 227-233.

ROBERTS, R. GOLDING, J., TOWELL, A., REID, S. WOODFORD, S., VETERE, A. and WEINREB, I. (2000) Mental and physical health in students: The role of economic circumstances. British Journal of Health Psychology, 5, 289-297.

LIASIS, A., TOWELL, A. and BOYD, S. (2000) Intracranial evidence for differential encoding of frequency and duration responses. Ear and Hearing, 21, 252-256.

REID, S., TOWELL, A. and GOLDING, J. (2000) Seasonality, social zeitgebers and mood variability in entrainment of mood: implications for seasonal affective disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 59, 47-54.

BAKER, D., ROBERTS, R. and TOWELL, A. (2000) Factors predictive of bone mineral density in eating disordered women: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 27, 29-35.

Books and Reviews

ROBERTS, R., TOWELL, A. and GOLDING, J. (2001) Foundations of Health Psychology. Palgrave: Basingstoke

TOWELL, A. (2001) Nonconscious processing. Parapsychology: The science of unusual experience. Eds R Roberts and D Groome. Arnold.

TOWELL, A. (1996). Book review: Handbook of pain assessment Eds D Turk and R Melzack. Journal of Psychophysiology, 10 72-74.

YOUL, B., TURANO, G., TOWELL, A., BARRETT, G., MacMANUS, D., MOORE, S., MILLER, D., JONES, S., du BOULAY, E., KENDALL, B., MOSELY, I. and McDONALD, W.I. (1996) Optic neuritis: Swelling and atrophy. Electroencephal. clin. Neurophysiol. Suppl. 46 173-179.

BARRETT, G., PIRTOSEK, Z., JAHANSHAHI, M., TOWELL, A and LEES, A. (1996) Cognitive evoked potentials in Parkinson's disease and related disorders. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology pp 585-589. eds Kimura J and Shibasaki H Elsevier Science.

TOWELL, A. (1990). Book review: Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology Ed F. Flach. Biological Psychology, 30 89-96.

WILLNER, P., TOWELL, A., SAMPSON, D. and MUSCAT, R.(1988) Dopamine and antidepressant drugs: The antagonist challenge strategy. In Belmaker, H., Sandler, M. and Dahlstrom, A. (Eds) Progress in catecholamine research, Part C. Liss, New York, pp.275-279.

Recent Published Conference Abstracts

MCMULLEN, M. WHITEHOUSE, J. SHINE, G & TOWELL, A. Habitual coffee and tea drinkers experienced increases in blood pressure after consuming low to moderate doses of caffeine. First International Congress Co.Co.Tea, Novara, Italy, on 13-16 September 2011.

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M., PACI, L. & TOWELL, T. (2011) Visual event-related potential recordings of stimuli presented below and at the threshold of subjective perception. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, in press.  Annual Conference, May 4-6, GLA265, p.49

FLYNN, M., GRESTY, M., TOWELL, T. & GOLDING, J.F. (2011) EEG effects of motion sickness induced in a visual off-vertical axis (OVAR) environment. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, in press. Annual Conference, May 4-6, GLA212, p.49

MCMULLEN, M. WHITEHOUSE, J. SHINE, G & TOWELL, A. The Finometer can function as a standalone instrument in blood pressure variability studies and does not require support equipment to determine breathing frequency. The EPS Xuzhou International Conference of Hematology, China, April15th -16th, 2011.

Michael K. McMULLEN, Julie M. WHITEHOUSE, Gillian SHINE, Anthony TOWELL. Does tasting GENTIANA LUTEA affect cardiovascular parameters? CAMSTRAND conference, London April 2009

HIXENBAUGH, P; DEWART, H; GOLDING, J; TOWELL, T; WILLIAMS, D. (2009) Relationships the Key to Student Success. Poster presented at APS 21st Annual Convention, San Francisco, 22-25 May.

MUFTI, GR, CARTWRIGHT, T, & TOWELL, T. (2008). A thematic analysis of childrens’ experiences of living with thalassemia major in Pakistan, Presented at the Joint BPS/EHPS Health Psychology Conferences, Bath. Abstract in Psychology & Health, 23(1), 189

SPACKMAN, L., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. Effects of stimulus frequency and duration on the somatosensory mismatch negativity. (2007) Clinical Neurophysiology 118,  e175.

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M. & TOWELL, T. (2006). Identification of a pre-attentive visual discrimination response. Clinical Neurophysiology, 117 Supplement 1, P36.42, S314

GOLDING, J., DEWART, H., HIXENBAUGH, P., WILLIAMS, D., URWIN, P., MURPHY, R and TOWELL, A. (2006) A Sense of Belonging: Indicators of Health Amongst Students in Higher Education. International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 13, S 269. 

TOWELL, T., SEN, A., BAKER, D. & LAWRENCE, E. (2006). Socio-Cultural & Demographic Influences on Eating Attitudes and Behaviours:  A Study of Turkish Women in Istanbul, Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 14, 1, 43.

TULLOCH, S., LYNAM-SMITH, A., WILLIAMS, D. & TOWELL, T. Preconscious priming of an acute pain response. (2005) Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 13, 1, 73.

REID, S., GOLDING, J., ROBERTS, R., PHILLIPS, K. and TOWELL, A. (2000) Important life domains, future life transitions and meaning in life. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 8 1, 20.

LIASIS, A., TOWELL, A. VARGHA-KHADEM, F. and BOYD, S. (2000). Neurophysiological evidence of left hemisphere specialisation for language processing in hemispherectomised children. European Journal of Neuroscience, 12, 11, 169.

BOYD, S., LIASIS, A., ALHO, K. and TOWELL, A. (2000). Identification of an intracranial frontal mismatch negativity component to acoustic change. European Journal of Neuroscience, 12, 11, 130.

TOWELL, A., LIASIS, A., CAMPBELL, P., SIRIMANNA, T. and BOYD, S. (2000). Neurophysiological markers of central auditory processing deficits in normal hearing and language developed children. European Journal of Neuroscience, 12, 11, 169.

JAHANSHAHI, M., DIRNBERGER, G., LIASIS, A., TOWELL, A. and BOYD, S. (2000). Recordings of movement-related potentials from subdural electrodes over the prefrontal cortex. Journal of Psychophysiology. 14, 3, 187.

TOWELL, A., LIASIS, A. and BOYD, S. (2000). Intracranial evidence for the dissociation of frequency and duration mismatch negativity (MMN). Journal of Psychophysiology, 14, 3, 192.

LIASIS, A., CAMPBELL, P., TOWELL, A., BAMIOU, D.,SIRIMANNA, T. and BOYD, S. (2000). Mismatch negativity: an index of an auditory memory deficit in a family. Electroencephal. clin. Neurophysiol. 111, S1, 48.

Invited talks and unpublished conference abstracts since joining the University of Westminster

CLOW, A., TOWELL, A., FREDHOI, C., HUCKLEBRIDGE, F., EVANS, P. (2008). Gender and age-related differences in the diurnal pattern of salivary cortisol secretion. American Psychosomatic Society 66^th Annual Scientific Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, March

McMULLEN, M., TOWELL, A., SHINE, G & WHITEHOUSE, J. (2008). Habitual caffeine consumers tested with Finometer do not show complete haematological tolerance to caffeine. School of Bioscieces Postgraduate Fair, May

McMULLEN, M. WHITEHOUSE, J. SHINE, G & TOWELL, A. (2007). Does caffeine affect breathing and contribute to sleep problems. NHAA 6^th International Conference on Phytotherapeutics, Canberra, September

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M. & TOWELL, T. (2007) A pre-attentive visual discrimination response to a change in orientation in a behaviourally silent paradigm.

British Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision, ICH, London, June

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M. & TOWELL, T. (2007) Intracranial evidence for separation of visual detection and discrimination responses to a change in stimulus orientation in a behaviourally silent paradigm. Invasive intracranial electrophysiology of the human brain:“non-clinical” studies in epilepsy patients, Kings College London, June

McMULLEN, M. WHITEHOUSE, J. SHINE, G & TOWELL, A. (2007) Breathing frequency can be estimated using stroke volume oscillations obtained from beat-to-beat finger pulse contour measures. 12th Congress of the International Society for Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology,Athens, June

FREDHOI C., TOWELL, T., MAGUIRE, M. and CLOW, A. (2007) Predictors of Positive and Negative Wellbeing in Older People, 1st Applied Positive Psychology Conference, University of Warwick, April

McMULLEN, M. WHITEHOUSE, J. SHINE, G & TOWELL, A. (2007) Breathing frequency estimation from stroke volume oscillations calculated from Model flow using continuous finger arterial pressure measurements with Finometer. European Association for Cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation, Madrid, April.

SPACKMAN, L., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. (2006) Characterization of somatosensory discrimination responses using scalp and intracranial recordings. Clinical Neurophysiology, 117(S1), S100.

FLYNN, M., LIASIS, A., GARDNER, M. & TOWELL, T. (2006). Identification of a pre-attentive visual discrimination response. Clinical Neurophysiology, 117(S1), S314.

BAKER, D. & TOWELL, A. (2006) Perceptions of treatment and outcome in former eating disordered in-patients. International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 13, S 132-133.

TOWELL, A. Experimental studies of the acute pain response in normal participants: Implications for health psychology interventions. City University, March 2004.

TOWELL, A. 2nd Stage 2 supervisors training workshop for chartered health psychologists, Guys Hospital, October 2003.

RUTTER, D., MICHIE, S., JOHNSTON, M. & T. TOWELL. Roundtable discussion on 'NHS careers for health psychologists: current developments. Presented at Division of Health Psychology conference, Staffordshire, September 2003.

TOWELL, A. The future of Health Psychology. Middlesex University, London, April 2003.

TOWELL, A. Testing socio-cultural factors in the development of disordered eating. WHO European chapter of Psychiatry, Special interest group-transcultural psychiatry, University of Malaga, Spain, March 2003.

TOWELL, A. 1st Supervisors training workshop for chartered health psychologists, Bonnington Hotel, London, February 2003.

TOWELL, A. Organiser and Chair of the 10th Anniversary lecture series, Department of Psychology, University of Westminster. Speakers include Profs, Steve Newstead, Doug Carroll, Michael Billig, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Adrian Furnham, October-December 2002.

LIASIS, A., NISCHAL, K., TOWELL, A., HARDY, S. & THOMSON, D. Electrophysiological marker of raises in intracranial pressure in children with craniosynotosis. 40th ISCEV symposium, Leuven Belgium. 2002.

LIASIS, A., BAMIOU, D., CAMPBELL, P., BOYD, S. & TOWELL, A. Auditory event related potentials in the assessment of auditory processing disorders: A pilot study. 2nd meeting of the British Society of Neuro-Otology, Leicester, October 2002.

GORDON, A., KIRKHAM, F. and TOWELL, A.. Functional outcome and general parental and child health after middle cerebral artery stroke in childhood. British Paediatric Neurology Association, Glasgow, January 2000.

WOODFORD, S., BAKER, D., REID, S., ROONEY, B. and TOWELL, A. Compliance as a predictor of outcome in anorexia. 1st International Conference on Critical and Qualitative Approaches to Health Psychology. St Johns, Newfoundland, July 1999.

BOYD, S., LIASIS, A. and TOWELL, A. Auditory event related potentials in post-hemispherectomy patients. 1st International Workshop on MMN and its Clinical Applications. Helsinki, October 1998.

ROBERTS, R., GOLDING, J. F., REID, S., WOODFORD, S. and TOWELL, A., Socioeconomic differences in perceived life expectancy: implications for social-cognition models of health behaviours. European Health Psychology Society, Vienna, September 1998.

WILLIAMS, D., GOLDING, J., PHILLIPS, K. and TOWELL, A. Pressure algometry in the assessment of pain threshold and tolerance. European Health Psychology Society, Bordeaux, September 1997.

FORTUNE, D., ROBERTS, R and TOWELL, A. Depression in multiple sclerosis: the role of psychosocial mediators. European Health Psychology Society, Dublin, September, 1996.

TOWELL, A and BOYD, S. Analysis of single trial brain responses following painful and non-painful CO2 laser stimulation. 8th World Congress of the International Organisation of Psychophysiology, Tampere, Finland, June 1996

TOWELL A. Invited speaker to European Union Action Program Workshop on biochemical and neurophysiological techniques in metabolic disorders. Applications of cognitive potentials in childhood: methodologies and issues for the study of metabolic conditions. University of Padua, Italy, June 1995.

TOWELL, A. Laser induced brain potentials: sensory and cognitive processes. Invited speaker Institute of Gerontology, University of Melbourne and Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, April 1995.

TOWELL A. and BOYD S. Comparison of CO2 laser-evoked potentials from hairy and glabrous skin. Presented at the European Congress of Clinical Neurophysiology, Budapest, Hungary, July 1994.

TOWELL, A. Convenor of symposium "Psychophysiology of Pain" (sponsored by Glaxo) in British Psychophysiology Society Scientific Meeting, University of Westminster, London, December 1994.

TOWELL, A. Invited participant to European Science Foundation Research Conference: The development of sensory, motor and cognitive capabilities in early infancy - from sensation to cognition. Aquafredda di Maratea, Italy. October 1994.

TOWELL, A. The dopaminergic modulation of the event related brain potentials. Invited speaker (British Council). The International Symposium on Extrapyramidal Disorders, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sept. 1994.

TOWELL, A. Invited Discussant on Clinical Application of Cognitive Event Related Potentials. Societe de Neurophysiologie Clinique de Langue Francaise, Hopital de la Salpetriere, Paris, March 1994.

TOWELL, A. The CO2 laser in the investigation of the small nerve pathways. Department of Neurology, University of Lyon. Feb.1993.

TOWELL, A. Brain responses associated with pain. Invited discussion group on pain. MRC Cyclotron Unit, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London. Nov. 1992.

TOWELL, A. Dissociation of sensory and cognitive components of the CO2-laser evoked potential. Recipient of International Federation of Societies for Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology Travel Fellowship - International Congress of Clinical Neurophysiology, Jerusalem, June. 1992.

TOWELL, A. The cognitive event-related potentials. The Hospital for Sick Children, London. Feb. 1992.