Adam Walkerprofile image
Dr

Adam Walker


Current Appointments

Research Fellow, Group Leader - Laboratory of Immunopsychiatry, Neuroscience Research Australia
Senior Researcher, UNSW, School of Psychiatry
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The Laboratory of ImmunoPsychiatry, led by Dr Adam Walker, investigates the role of the immune system and inflammation in symptoms of psychiatric illness. We investigate the mechanisms responsible for inflammation-associated psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, neurodevelopmental disorders such as Tourette’s Syndrome and Autism, and when symptoms of depression and cognitive impairment occur in patients with chronic inflammatory illness such as cancer (known as ‘chemobrain’). The Laboratory of ImmunoPsychiatry is dedicated to identifying potential cheap available drugs that can be repurposed to prevent and treat psychiatric illness and to identify new biological targets for novel drug design.

Dr Adam Walker completed his PhD at the University of Newcastle in 2011 and completed successful postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.  He returned to Australia in 2015 and joined Monash University as a National Breast Cancer Foundation research fellow, investigating the mechanisms underlying cognitive and psychiatric side-effects of cancer and its treatment. Now at NeuRA, Adam’s research focuses on mechanisms of inflammation-induced depression, schizophrenia and cancer-associated cognitive impairment. He has pioneered discovery of available drugs that may be repurposed to prevent treat inflammation-induced depression (ketamine, leucine) and cancer-associated cognitive impairment (aspirin).


Publications

2022, 01 Dec

Cancer activates microglia to the same extent as chronic stress throughout stress neurocircuitry in a mouse model of breast cancer

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1151187166

2022, 01 Dec

NSAID use and unnatural deaths after cancer diagnosis: a nationwide cohort study in Sweden

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1144737346

2022, 01 Dec

Peripheral NF-ÎşB dysregulation in people with schizophrenia drives inflammation: putative anti-inflammatory functions of NF-ÎşB kinases

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1144619749

2022, 01 Oct

Dietary intake in children on the autism spectrum is altered and linked to differences in autistic traits and sensory processing styles

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1150506759

2022, 01 Sep

Cancer-related cognitive impairment in patients with newly diagnosed aggressive lymphoma undergoing standard chemotherapy: a longitudinal feasibility study

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1148653328

2022, 01 May

Disrupting circadian rhythms promotes cancer-induced inflammation in mice

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1145367718

2022, 01 Feb

Clocking onto chemotherapy to enhance cancer treatment

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1143627649

2021, 01 Dec

Neuroinflammation in schizophrenia: the role of nuclear factor kappa B

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1141876228

2021, 01 May

Trajectory of change in brain complement factors from neonatal to young adult humans

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1132647485

2020, 14 Dec

The Anti-Inflammatory Drug Aspirin Does Not Protect Against Chemotherapy-Induced Memory Impairment by Paclitaxel in Mice

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1133487026


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