Projects
Making real advances will require collaborative, inter-disciplinary efforts by us to bring cutting edge neuroscience to bear on these illnesses.
Psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders are major causes of death and disability, and modern medicine has yet to have any significant impact in these areas. We need better treatments and prevention and this will require better understanding of causes and mechanisms.
Advances in genetics and in understanding how the brain works mean that there is now the realistic prospect of making such advances over the next ten years. This will require collaborative, inter-disciplinary efforts by us to bring cutting edge neuroscience to bear on these illnesses.
Neuroscience and mental health is already a major research strength in Cardiff University, particularly in the research areas of genetics and genomics of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, developmental neuroscience, visual neuroscience, behavioural and cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, molecular neurobiology and cell therapies.
The Research Institute will help develop new areas of research aimed at translating the fundamental discoveries by Cardiff Neuroscientists into greater understanding of disease mechanisms and the identification of novel drug targets, biomarkers and diagnostics.
The Research Institute’s aim is to encourage more neuroscientists to work in these areas and to train and develop young researchers. The focus will be across the lifespan from childhood to old-age and will include neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, the major adult psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Key research areas to be developed by the Research Institute will include neuroimaging and cognition; stem cell research, and animal and cellular models.
Further details of new research projects will appear on these pages as they come on stream.
Events
- 12th March 2012
A Public Lecture by Professor Sir Robin Murray - "What Drives People Mad?"
