Projects

The CLEAR study will provide us with a better understanding of the ways that cholesterol and the different types of cholesterol may affect the risk of developing cognitive decline or dementia. 

The LCBP-COG study will provide us with a better understanding of the ways that high blood pressure can increase the risk of cognitive decline or dementia over the lifecourse.

The General Practice Knowledge Translation (GP-KT) project is an online survey designed to help us understand what people already know about dementia risk and dementia risk reduction in frontline healthcare settings.

In particular we are keen to understand the barriers that might delay or prevent dementia risk reduction activities so that we can work to reduce these over time.

At the moment we are recruiting Australian General practitioners and their teams. International versions are the survey are also in development.

Although the contribution of the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate to energy metabolism in the healthy brain is minimal, it is an interesting metabolite which is not only oxidised but also has other direct and collateral effects which make it a molecule of interest for therapeutic purposes. These effects may include metabolic, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects as well as roles in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders and epilepsy. This project is investigating the role of β-hydroxybutyrate in the brain, both at the basic science level and also its interactions in disease models.

This project aims to better identify those at higher risk of subsequently developing Parkinson’s disease with the aim of being about to test and validate potential preventative measures. We aim to identify people at risk while they are still healthy before irreversible major cell loss has occurred.

Collaborators: Kay Double, USyd; Gabrielle Todd, UNiSA, Karl Aoun (Usyd)

This Australian Research Council funded project (DP180101702) aims to understand the functions that amino acids play in brain, in particular in protein biosynthesis and energy generation. We are using a combination of genetic and pharmacological manipulation in conjunction with isotope labelling and NMR spectroscopy to help build our model.

Collaborators: Stefan Bröer, ANU, Brian Billups, ANU, Abhijit Das NeuRA