Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health is one of the world’s top six brain research centres. We employ 600 research and support staff and educate 90 post-graduate students each year. Our scientists comprise the largest neuroscience research team in Australia.
Our teams work across a variety of disease states such as stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, motor neuron disease, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, mental illnesses including schizophrenia, depression and addiction. We are world leaders in imaging technology, stroke rehabilitation and epidemiological studies.
Heath Pardoe, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Doctors weren’t happy when celebrity Kim Kardashian promoted whole-body MRI scans recently. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hold promise for understanding ageing on a grander scale.
Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The key to understanding how brains can recover from trauma is that they are fantastically plastic – meaning our body’s supercomputer can reshape and remodel itself.
Carey Wilson, The University of Melbourne and Thibault Renoir, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Early reports suggested an apparent increase in OCD relapse rates and symptom severity during the pandemic. But a year on, we’re learning this may not be the case.
David Farmer, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The brain itself can’t actually feel pain. It can’t sense damage to itself the way your finger can. We know this because people can have brain surgery while they are totally awake.
David Farmer, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
An adult brain weighs about 1.5kg. It’s mostly water with some fat, protein, sugar and a dash of salt. Sounds like pancakes, I know, but I once tried chicken brains and, well, pancakes are tastier.
Trevor Kilpatrick, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
La sclérose en plaques affecte de façon surtout les jeunes femmes. Elle survient quand le système immunitaire attaque le cerveau et brouille la communication avec le corps. Quelles sont ses causes ?
Trevor Kilpatrick, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Las mujeres jóvenes son mucho más propensas a padecer esclerosis múltiple, una enfermedad en la que el cuerpo ataca al cerebro, dificultando la comunicación con el resto del organismo. Esto es lo que sabemos sobre las causas.
Trevor Kilpatrick, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Young women are disproportionately affected by multiple sclerosis, a disease where the body attacks the brain, scrambling communication to the rest of the body. Here’s what we know about the causes.
Rachel Buckley, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Have you noticed your thinking ability drops during winter and spring? A new study of healthy adults and dementia patients found cognitive function declines in the colder months.
Wearing a tie that causes slight discomfort can reduce blood flow to the brain by 7.5%, but the reduction is unlikely to cause any physical symptoms, which generally begin at a reduction of 10%.
Karen Lamb, Deakin University and David Farmer, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
A statistical method widely used today by scientists and others is all thanks to a statistician at a Guinness brewery whose work was published anonymously more than a century ago.
Yen Ying Lim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and Rachel Buckley, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, but treatments are still far from successful in clinical trials. Here is what we know about the disease, and what is yet to be uncovered.
Jee Hyun Kim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The Florey Institute’s Dr Jee Hyun Kim explains how the different aspects of memory work and why attention is the most important element of improving your memory in this long-form comic explainer.
Chris Tailby, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Light arriving from the right visual field is processed in the brain’s left hemisphere. So damage to the left part of the primary visual cortex will result in blindness in the right visual field.
Genevieve Rayner, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Many regions fundamental to mood are buried deep in the most primordial parts of the brain; that is, they are thought to have been among the first brain regions to develop in the human species.
David Abbott, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
When you read this text, certain regions in your brain begin working more than others. Advanced imaging allows scientists to map the brain networks responsible for understanding language.