She attended the Godolphin and Latymer School, where she took A levels in Latin, Greek and ancient history, and maths. The first member of her immediate family to go to university, she was initially admitted to St Hilda's College to read Philosophy and Psychology, but changed course and graduated with a first-class degree in experimental psychology. As a Senior Scholar at St Hugh's College, Oxford, she completed her DPhil degree in 1977 under the supervision of Anthony David Smith on the "Origins of acetylcholinesterase in cerebrospinal fluid".