NeuRA has experts able to provide comment to the media on many areas of the brain and nervous system research.

For all media enquiries, including interviews with NeuRA researchers, please contact:

NeuRA Media Department
P: +61 452 140 477
E: media@neura.edu.au

Ageing and Neurodegeneration

Scientia Professor Matthew Kiernan AM

• Cognitive Function and Ageing
• Dementia prevention
• Dementia including frontotemporal dementia
• Neurological disorders
• Stiff Person Syndrome
• Motor Neuron Diease

Scientia Professor Kaarin Anstey

• Cognitive Function and Ageing
• Ageing and driver safety
• Dementia prevention and risk reduction
• Dementia and air pollution
• Dementia and diet
• Dementia and sex differences (including links)

Professor Carolyn Sue AM

• Parkinson’s and mitochondrial disease
• Development of Parkinson’s treatments
• Global Parkinson’s research and new potential treatments

Dr Kylie Radford

• Aboriginal Health and ageing
• Dementia prevalence and incidence in Aboriginal populations
• Risk factors for dementia and prevention
• Dementia and colonisation

Prof Tony Broe AM

• Geriatric medicine
• Effects of ageing on the brain, including degenerative brain disorders
• Healthy ageing in Indigenous Australians
• The link between factors in early life and brain health in later life
• Injury-induced dementia
• Incidence, causes of dementia
• Incidence, causes of dementia in Indigenous Australians
• Diagnosis and incidence of Parkinson’s

Dr Claire Shepherd

• Frontotemporal dementia
• Motor Neurone Disease
• Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
• Inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease
• Changes in Brain Pathology in Parkinson’s

Dr Craig Sinclair

• Supported decision making for people with dementia
• Unravelling the complexities of supporting someone with dementia
• Advanced care planning and taking a life-story approach to supporting people prior to advanced cognitive decline
  

Mental health and disorders

Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert

• Brain development in children, adolescents with schizophrenia
• Schizophrenia and inflammation
• Inflammation and neurogenesis
• Genetics of schizophrenia
• Causes and biomarkers of schizophrenia
• Atypical brain development in schizophrenia
• Role of hormones in schizophrenia
• New treatments for schizophrenia

Associate Professor Jan Fullerton

• Genetics and epigenetics of bipolar disorder
• Prevalence of bipolar disorder in Australia
• Genetics of schizophrenia
• Rare variants which increase risk to bipolar disorder

Associate Professor Justine Gatt

• Neuroscience of positive mental health, resilience and mental wellbeing
• Genetics of mental wellbeing
• TWIN study – is positive mental health, wellbeing and resilience from nature or nurture
• Measuring mental wellbeing in children, adolescents and adults
• Measuring mental wellbeing in clinical contexts
• Wellbeing programs and interventions
• Wellbeing and resilience smartphone apps

Professor Sylvia Gustin

• Mental health and chronic pain
• Chronic pain and emotional recovery

Translational Neuroscience

Professor Simon Gandevia

• Improvement of breathing/coughing in people with high-level spinal cord injury
• EWALK trial – world-first trial aiming to improve walking and movement in people with spinal cord injuries
• How the central nervous system controls muscles used in breathing
• Role central nervous system control in muscle fatigue
• Muscle performance and a decline in function after polio
• How the brain, central nervous system and muscles work together to create a sense of bodily position in space, a sense of body ownership
  

Professor Jane Butler

• Improvement of breathing/coughing in people with high-level spinal cord injury
• eWALK and eWALK2 trials – world-first trials aiming to improve walking and movement in people with spinal cord injuries
• Get-a-Grip and RULLI trials – trials aiming to improve upper limb and respiratory function in people with spinal cord injuries
• How the central nervous system controls muscles used in breathing
• The effect of acute intermittent hypoxia on muscle function
• Role central nervous system control in muscle fatigue

Scientia Professor Stephen Lord

• Understanding how we maintain balance (sensory and motor contributions)
• Behavioural and environmental factors that lead to poor balance
• The causes, risk factors and preventions strategies of falls
• Physiology and biomechanics of walking, standing, stepping
• Falls risk in people with Parkinson’s
• Falls risk after stroke

Professor Kim Delbaere

• Understanding physical and cognitive decline in older people
• Prevention of falls
• Relationship between physical and cognitive decline
• Falls prediction
• Brain structure and function

Prof Jacqueline Close AM

• Fall prevention and management focusing  those with dementia
• Hip fracture epidemiology, care and outcomes including the Australia and New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry
• Frailty and cognition in older people in the surgical setting
• Delirium prevention and management
• Unwarranted clinical variation in hip fracture care
  

Professor Lynne Bilston

• Mechanics of how the body is injured in car crashes
• Development of new car safety features
• Mechanical function of the upper airway, especially in obstructive sleep apnoea
• Mechanical function of the upper airway in obstructive sleep apnoea
• Mechanical properties of the spinal cord and mechanism of injury
• Paediatric spinal cord injury

Associate Professor Julie Brown

• How human, environmental and vehicle factors interact to cause injury
• Development of new car safety features
• Injury prevention policy

Professor James McAuley

• Improving management of chronic pain
• Complex regional pain syndrome
• Early intervention to lower back pain

Dr Ingvars Birznieks

• Encoding of touch receptors
• Adaptation and aftereffects in perception of tactile motion
• Restoring sensitivity in neuropathy
• Mismatching of hand representation after stroke

Brain structure and function

Professor Lindy (Caroline) Rae

• Brain changes in adolescents after binge drinking
• MRI and fMRI study and use
• Biomarkers of obstructive sleep apnoea

Scientia Professor George Paxinos AO

• Structure and function of the human brain and brainstem
• Structure and function of animal brains and brainstems

Filming in labs

NeuRA is well-equipped to accommodate media requests to film relevant news stories in our state-of-art laboratories and other research facilities.

To ensure the safety of all visitors and to minimise any disruption to our researchers, we kindly ask that you get in touch with our media team (media@neura.edu.au) at least 24-48 hours prior to filming (where possible) to arrange interviews, required filming locations, parking and check-in protocols.