Research projects

Showing all 42 projects

• Accepting students
  Rapid animal models of Parkinson’s disease

  While mammalian-based Parkinson’s disease research is clearly a necessary step, sole reliance on mammalian models limits the rate at which new therapeutics can be identified.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Gawain McColl
• Accepting students
  Bioengineered scaffolds for brain repair

  We are developing and testing various nanofibrous scaffolds and hydrogels to provide structural support for stem cells and differentiating neurons in the injured brain.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Clare Parish
• Accepting students
  Generating neuronal subpopulations from pluripotent stem cell sources and their application in disease modelling and brain repair

  The Parish laboratory has a keen interest in the use of pluripotent stem cells for brain repair.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Clare Parish
• Accepting students
  Cell therapy for brain repair focussing on Parkinson’s disease

  Proof of principle for cell replacement therapy in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease was first demonstrated in the clinic using human fetal tissue in the 1980’s.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Clare Parish
• Accepting students
  Developmental specification of midbrain dopamine neurons and their connectivity

  Dopamine neurons, residing within the ventral midbrain (VM), are essential for the control of voluntary movement, emotion and cognitive function, and are affected in a number of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and addictio

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Clare Parish
• Accepting students
  Therapeutic approaches to dementia and depression in Huntington’s disease

  Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited single-gene abnormality that causes neurons in the brain to become dysfunctional and eventually die.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Thibault Renoir
• Alzheimer’s DiseaseAnxietyBehaviourDepressionMental Health
  Accepting students
  Gene-environment interactions in the regulation of cellular plasticity, cognitive function and behaviour

  The hippocampus is a dynamic brain structure believed to be critical to cognitive functions including memory consolidation and emotion regulation.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Thibault Renoir
• Stroke
  AuSCR Core Research project

  This project investigates the frequency of hospital based healthcare contacts and utilisation in the first year following acute stroke and factors associated with increased hospital utilisation.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Dominique Cadilhac
• AddictionAlzheimer’s DiseaseAnxietyAutismBehaviourBipolar disorderBrain injuryCancerCardiovascular diseaseDementiaDepressionEpigeneticsEpilepsyHuntington’s diseaseImagingMental HealthMultiple sclerosisParkinson’sSchizophreniaStrokeSTEM
  Accepting students
  Targeting peptide G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) for novel drug development

  Modern GPCR drug development is encumbered by a lack of information about the molecular structure underlying GPCR function and the reliance on cell-based assays that are prone to false positives in drug screening.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Ross Bathgate
• Alzheimer’s DiseaseCardiovascular diseaseEpilepsySTEM
  Accepting students
  Structure-based drug design targeting G-protein-coupled receptors

  To achieve GPCR selectivity we need new ways to identify and design more selective GPCR targeting drugs.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Ross Bathgate
• AddictionAnxietyBehaviourMental HealthSTEM
  Accepting students
  Drug discovery: investigation of signalling by GPCRS using novel cellular biosensors

  GPCRs are the targets for ~30% of all currently used therapeutic drugs. It is critical to understand how these receptors are activated, how they alter cellular function, how such responses are switched off, and how other cellular components can modulate th

  
  Supervisor: Dr Martina Kocan
• AddictionAnxietyDepressionMental Health
  Accepting students
  Viral-mediated modulation of neuropeptide GPCR function in brain

  Mental illness is a large and increasing health and economic burden worldwide and more research is urgently required to identify new and innovative therapies.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Ross Bathgate
• Stroke
  The Victorian Stroke Telemedicine Program

  The Victorian Stroke Telemedicine initiative is a ground breaking program of work that has the potential to transform the way clinicians collaborate to deliver the best care possible to stroke patients irrespective of their

  
  Supervisor: Professor Christopher Bladin
• Anxiety
  Regulation and inhibition of fear memory across development

  This project focuses on the regulation of emotional memory across development, from early childhood to adolescence.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Jee Hyun Kim
• Alzheimer’s DiseaseDementia
  Accepting students
  Memory, cognitive flexibility, and ageing

  People born between 1946 and 1964 (‘‘baby boomers’’) are entering retirement in large numbers. This has major implications both for the individuals and for society.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Jee Hyun Kim
• AnxietyMental Health
  Accepting students
  Adolescent vulnerability to anxiety: a dopamine story

  Anxiety disorders are a major worldwide public health concern, with ~1 in 4 Australians suffering from a clinically diagnosed anxiety disorder at least once in their lifetime.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Jee Hyun Kim
• AnxietyMental Health
  Accepting students
  Early life stress and regulation of inhibition and forgetting

  Early life experiences play a pivotal role in shaping personality and psychosocial functioning into adulthood.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Jee Hyun Kim
• AddictionMental Health
  Accepting students
  Adolescent vulnerability to addiction - gene & behaviour in rodents and humans

  Adolescence represents a unique period of vulnerability to developing drug addiction, with adolescent drug users displaying resistance to treatment and increased liability to relapse.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor Jee Hyun Kim
• AutismMental Health
  Accepting students
  Utilising Touchscreen technology for preclinical modeling of attention in autism spectrum disorder

  Autism is a complex spectrum of disorders characterized by core behavioural deficits in social interaction, communication, and behavioural flexibility.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Emma Burrows
• AnxietyAutismEpigeneticsMental Health
  Accepting students
  Investigating the inherited paternal influence on offspring cognition and behaviour

  As diploid animals, each individual human being is a genetic combination of their parents. Emerging evidence now indicates that the environment that our parents were exposed to can also influence us.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Terence Pang
• EpigeneticsMental HealthSchizophrenia
  Accepting students
  Experience-dependent plasticity modulating cognitive deficits in schizophrenia

  Most major brain disorders, including schizophrenia, are a product of complex interactions between genes and environmental factors.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Anthony Hannan
• EpigeneticsHuntington’s disease
  Accepting students
  Gene-environment interactions modulating dementia and depression in a tandem repeat disorder

  Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder with no known cure. HD is caused by a tandem repeat (CAG) expansion encoding an extended polyglutamine tract in the huntingtin protein. The disease is characterised by progressive psychiatric

  
  Supervisor: Professor Anthony Hannan
• A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial (AVERT): Database Projects

  
  Supervisor: Professor Julie Bernhardt
• EpilepsyImaging
  T2 relaxometry

  T2 relaxometry is a quantitative MR imaging modality that provides an estimate of the T2 relaxation constant of the imaged tissue.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Simultaneous EEG-fMRI

  We have developed improved methods for acquiring and analysing simultaneously acquired EEG and fMRI and we continue our efforts in this field, particularly targeting the investigation of epilepsy.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Quantitative voxel-based analysis of qualitative images

  Abnormalities in the brain can manifest on MRI as changes in shape (morphometry) or changes in the nature of the tissue (signal intensity). Quantitative assessment across the whole brain is possible. 

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Morphometry

  Altered size and shape of brain structures can be observed in association with disease. These abnormalities can be detected using various structural MRI methods including voxel based morphometry and cortical thickness analysis of T1-weighted MRI scans.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Laterality of brain function

  Lateralisation of language function in the brain is often an important question in neurosurgical planning.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Functional MRI Processing Pipelines

  There are many processing and analysis steps undertaken on functional MRI (fMRI) images after they are acquired by the MRI scanner.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Functional connectivity and the human brain functional connectome

  Understanding how the brain works requires knowledge of how brain regions communicate with each other to form large-scale functional networks.

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Epilepsy
  Artefact reduction in functional MRI

  Functional MRI (fMRI) is subject to a number of noise sources such as brain pulsation and subject motion that can substantially impact the quality of results. 

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• EpilepsyImagingSTEM
  Accepting students
  Functional neuroimaging analysis to identify brain abnormality in epilepsy

  Combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electro-encephalography (EEG) approaches can be used to define the brain networks in patients with epilepsy. 

  
  Supervisor: Associate Professor David Abbott
• Schizophrenia
  Accepting students
  Estrogen and the CNS: Implications for schizophrenia

  A role for sex hormones in the development of schizophrenia has been hypothesized to explain the observed sex difference in the age-of-onset and symptom severity, with women presenting less severe symptoms on average 3 years later than in men.

  
  Supervisor: Dr Andrea Gogos
• Multiple sclerosis
  Accepting students
  Mertk and the regulation of neural precursor cells

  The recent discovery that stem cells in the brain not only contribute to myelin repair, but also make myelin of normal thickness, offer the potential to enhance the brain's normal repair process.

  
  Supervisor: Ms Michele Binder
• Multiple sclerosis
  Accepting students
  Microglia in myelination

  This project will identify how microglia interact with myelin to fine-tune structure.

  
  Supervisor: Ms Michele Binder
• Multiple sclerosis
  Accepting students
  Tyro3 in myelination and remyelination

  In multiple sclerosis (MS) the protective sheath around nerves, known as myelin, is damaged and lost. This loss disrupts electrical impulses and exposes nerves to immune attack, leading to their death.

  
  Supervisor: Ms Michele Binder
• Addiction
  Accepting students
  Characterising the neuronal circuitry that underlies salt appetite

  While we need to consume salt, too much can be harmful and is in fact directly linked to ~5% of deaths annually in Australia. We have identified a system in the brain that regulates salt intake.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Andrew Lawrence
• Addiction
  Accepting students
  Alcohol and striatal adaptation

  Alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking are amongst the leading worldwide causes of preventable death and disease. Moreover, alcohol and tobacco are commonly co-abused and animal studies have implicated potential overlapping mechanisms of action in the brai

  
  Supervisor: Professor Andrew Lawrence
• Addiction
  Accepting students
  Investigating Alcohol-Related Dementia

  Alcohol-related dementia (ARD) is one of the leading causes of secondary (preventable) dementia, and younger onset dementia (onset of symptoms prior to 65 years) in Australia.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Andrew Lawrence
• Addiction
  Context-induced relapse after voluntary abstinence

  Substance abuse is a major health care problem. Accordingly, there is a real need to increase our fundamental understanding of the processes behind addiction, so that more targeted therapeutic strategies can follow.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Andrew Lawrence
• Addiction
  Accepting students
  Diet-induced obesity: is it an addiction?

  Can eating junk food compulsively be called an addiction? What brain changes occur when we consume too much fat and sugar?  

  
  Supervisor: Dr Robyn Brown
• Addiction
  Accepting students
  Peptides and stress-induced relapse

  How do neuropeptides regulate the brain's reward circuitry, especially in times of acute stress.

  
  Supervisor: Professor Andrew Lawrence