Blog: The Brain Dialogues, filtered by tag: Neuroimaging

PhD Candidate with CHeBA’s Neuroimaging Group, Dr Jing Du, is aiming to find the relationship between vascular burden and brain structural or functional changes in the ageing process, using Diffusion-weighted imaging techniques. Her ultimate hope is for her research to be meaningful and that it has an impact on future generations.   How did you first get into research? After completing my bachelor, I made the decision to continue with a Medical degree in Neurology, which opened the window for me to look at a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. The accumulated experience I gleaned… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au “Brain age” is an emerging hot research topic in brain ageing research. Brain age refers to an estimate of “how old a person’s brain is biologically”, representing actual brain health status. For example, a person aged 80 years old may have a healthier brain and more intact brain structures relative to his/her age. In this case, a younger brain age of, for example, 70 will be assigned. By doing so, one can assess the brain’s health relative to chronological age. Research can also be conducted by examining the protective factors in the individuals with… Read More

A PhD Candidate at CHeBA, Heidi Foo has taken a holistic approach to investigating determinants of healthy brain ageing by investigating the effect of genetic and environmental factors impacting cognitive health. Through her research she hopes to help shape more effective treatment interventions for people with dementia.   How did you get into researching the ageing brain? My first job as a graduate was in a tertiary hospital as a research assistant where I was responsible for administering neuropsychological assessments to patients who had dementia as well as Parkinson’s disease. In… Read More

The field of healthy brain ageing is broad and across researchers there is the common goal of ground-breaking outcomes to change the landscape of cognitive decline research and practice. Leader of CHeBA’s Neuroimaging Group, Associate Professor Wei Wen, highlights the importance of incremental research contributions, which play a fundamental role in shaping the foundation for more radical findings.   How did you first get into researching the ageing brain? I was a PhD student doing engineering at the University of Sydney. My degree directly involved research which was ultimately how I… Read More

Participants in CHeBA’s Sydney Centenarian Study represent a significant piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding successful ageing. Dr Jiyang Jiang hopes to utilise MRI imaging to account for differences in cognition found in healthy centenarians to develop early intervention targets for individuals at risk for cognitive decline. The wealth of hidden information found in MRI scans drew Dr Jiang to the field of neuroimaging.   How did you get into researching the ageing brain? Following my completion of a Bachelor of Engineering in China, I came to Australia to study a Master of… Read More

DR ANNE-NICOLE CASEY How people interact with and perceive one another, and each person’s thoughts and feelings about the quality of those interactions and relationships, can affect physical and mental health and well-being. Social cognitive function, which broadly refers to the way our brain processes social information, is recognised as an important marker of how efficiently our brain processes information in general1. Interestingly, the number of individuals with whom a person interacts frequently is associated with their short-term memory capacity2. Some studies report that having larger… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au The John Holden Family Foundation became the first Diamond Member of The Dementia Momentum® when it committed $600,000 to CHeBA’s initiative to be received by mid-2016. This contribution will fund a project led by Associate Professor Wei Wen, leader of CHeBA’s Neuroimaging Group. The project will bring together a large number of studies from around the world to collectively examine the clinical implications and the genetic basis of white matter hyperintensities and lacunes (small silent strokes), and thereby cerebral small vessel disease. The research… Read More