Peter Charles Whybrow

Peter Charles Whybrow

Plainfield, NH - Dr. Peter Charles Whybrow, neuroscientist and writer whose work shaped modern understanding of mood disorders and their relationship to brain chemistry and culture, died on August 25, 2025, under the care of his family in Waitsfield, Vermont. He was 86.

Born in Hatfield, England, on June 13, 1939, to Charles Whybrow and Doris Abbott, Peter's boyhood was marked World War II, rations and bombing and the total absence of his father, who he first met when he was eight years old. Peter left his tiny, working class village to study medicine at University College London, reflecting that it was his father's mental suffering after the war that pushed him to study the brain and emotion.

With his childhood sweetheart, Ruth (Steele) Whybrow, he sought a life of adventure, riding their tandem all over Europe in the 1950s and learning how to ski for their honeymoon, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1969 to seek a career in medicine. He first joined the faculty of Dartmouth Medical School, becoming chair of psychiatry and later executive dean, while also helping work a small family farm in Plainfield that was built in 1777. He always loved history and old things and the work of meticulously caring for them.

In 1984, Peter was named the Ruth Meltzer Professor and chair of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Although he kept the family farm, he and Ruth divorced in 1989. Thirteen years later, Peter moved again for his career, this time to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and chief executive of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. At UCLA he built an internationally prominent center for neuroscience and mental health. He held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and at Oxford University, where he helped establish the Centre for Human Flourishing.

Dr. Whybrow's research established him as a leading authority on the biological and behavioral effects of thyroid hormones and on the complex nature of mood disorders. In particular he studied bipolar illness, the subject of his first major book, A Mood Apart (1997). He reached broad audiences with books that explored the mismatch of our ancient human physiology with modern society, including American Mania: When More Is Not Enough (2005), and The Well-Tuned Brain (2015). His books reflect his immensely curious mind and love of the arts, combining literature, myth, history and personal stories with hardcore science.

Admired for his mentorship as much as his scholarship, Whybrow was known for his generosity, curiosity, and wit. He could surprise, delight and occasionally slay people with a surprising turn of phrase. A voracious reader and lover of arts and music, he lived in a world of books and ideas, fond of early mornings, long walks and engaging conversations as well as a late night whisky and game of chess. From a childhood that lacked in nearly everything, he continually sought refinement, order, beauty and knowledge. He will be remembered by many for the lengths he would go to to help someone in mental distress and the kindness and dedication he showed his patients. In later years, despite declining health, he continued to mentor students and colleagues, raise funds for medical research and to counsel those with mental illness.

Peter is survived by his daughters, Kate Whybrow and David McGough of Plainfield, NH; Helen Whybrow and Peter Forbes of Waitsfield, VT; his brother, John Whybrow of Sussex, UK; and four grandchildren, Chase, Gavin, Willa, and Wren.