Neuropsychiatry

Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) Research - Neuropsychiatry Group
The Neuropsychiatry Group is a collaborative group composed of staff from CHeBA and the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI).

About the Neuropsychiatry Research Group

CHeBA Neuropsychiatry, in partnership with the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), is at the forefront of research into neuropsychiatric disorders internationally. The NPI is a clinical academic facility of The Prince of Wales Hospital, a UNSW Sydney teaching hospital, and is part of the Mental Health Program of the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. Senior staff members of the NPI are shared with CHeBA, bringing research synergy to the partnership between the two units. As a tertiary referral unit specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of cognitive and psychiatric disorders associated with medical and neurological illnesses, the NPI offers access to specialists with well-developed academic profiles, and is uniquely positioned in being able to conduct and disseminate outcomes from translational research projects.

CHeBA Co-Director, Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev, is Professor of Neuropsychiatry at UNSW Sydney, as well as the Clinical Director of NPI. Dr Adith Mohan is a Neuropsychiatrist at the NPI and a research fellow and PhD student in CHeBA investigating gene expression changes in the ageing human brain. Both are involved in carrying out research projects within the NPI and CHeBA that overlap in the areas of dementia, stroke, functional neurological disorders and brain stimulation. Research projects currently underway are in collaboration with other CHeBA Neuropsychiatry research staff members. Dr Rebecca Koncz is a Neuropsychiatrist and undertaking a PhD at CHeBA in the neuroimaging of Alzheimer's dementia., and Dr Matthew Paradise is a Psychogeriatrician investigating biomarkers of vascular dementia in his PhD work.

Current Projects

  • Investigation of the efficacy of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Tourette syndrome.
  • Open label interventional study of the efficacy of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in treatment refractory obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) — clinical trial with investigation of neurophysiological markers of treatment response (collaboration with University of Queensland and Queensland Brain Institute)
  • Validation of a Unified Drug Induced Movement Disorders Scale (UDIMS) — Validation study of a global rating scale for the monitoring of drug-induced movement disorders.

Staff

 

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