2009 was a year of development for the Neurocognitive Research Group in the FNI. We continued to strengthen links between senior researchers and their teams from the School of Behavioural Science (University of Melbourne), the Brain Research Institute, the National Stroke Research Institute, and the Epilepsy Research Centre. We increased links between research projects and the clinical setting, with research at the Box Hill Hospital-based Eastern Cognitive Disorders Centre (ECDC) as well as collaborations with researchers at Austin Health, Royal Melbourne Hospital and the FRONTIER group at the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute. We formed new collaborations with industry, contributing to a COGSTATE initiated project in which a community based examination of cognitive trajectory is studied. The focus of our group remains neuroscientific enquiry at a systems level in both basic and applied (clinical) fields, to facilitate the translation of experimental findings to improved clinical practice using a science-practitioner approach.
Highlights include: well-attended Neurocognitive Workshops arising from monthly research meetings; ECDC symposium at the Conference for Clinical Neuropsychologists on the diagnosis and management of frontotemporal dementias; Churchill Fellowship for ECDC Staff member Dr Tracey Wardill, Senior Neuropsychologist.
“The human brain must continue to frame the problems for the electronic machine to solve.”
