Neurodevelopment in Health and Disease

We are a multidisciplinary research program identifying the determinants of healthy brain development, and combating the early origins of neurological disease across the lifespan.

To contact an individual researcher please see our who we are page. Alternatively, reach out to our Program Leader, Professor David Walker using the button below.

Email David Walker

Research focus

We are Australian leaders in functional and structural examination of the brain and peripheral nervous system. We are discovering the fundamental neural changes that occur during development, and how these might be changed or disrupted by disease and environmental impacts. Our research across the lifespan is advancing our understanding of how to keep the brain healthy for longer.

Capabilities

Our research addresses fundamental neurobiological questions and important biomedical problems including: poor fetal growth, cerebral palsy, obesity, stress, cognitive dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, stroke, sleep disorders, and the origins of behavioural abnormalities such as autism.

We use molecular, pharmacological, microfluidics, neurophysiological, and behavioural assessment techniques to enable the investigation of oxidative stress, neurogenesis and myelination, mitochondrial function, regulation of brain energy supply, neuroendocrinology of stress, quantitative assessment of behaviour and cognition, and detailed evaluation of brain structure using MRI/MRS, electrophysiology, qPCR, Next-Gen sequencing, super-resolution microscopy and immunohistochemistry.