Brain connections in colourful illustration
The brain and cognition across the lifespan research theme builds upon the world-leading expertise at the Brain Research & Imaging Centre (BRIC) and integrates research into neurodevelopment in childhood and adolescence with brain health in older adults. Importantly, this theme extends from healthy development and ageing to a focus on atypical development and neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia. 
The research theme is home to an array of world-leading research, such as:
  • Digital cognition: studying social media's influence on brain function.
  • Neurolinguistics: mapping language development in the brain.
  • Eye and vision development: structural and functional markers of visual impairment. 
  • Traumatic brain injury in senescence: determining age and traumatic brain injury impact on cognition. 
  • Biological versus chronological aging: disentangling the neural aspects of aging. 
 

Research projects

Other exciting projects include:

  • Transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation with the visual cortex.
  • Developing diagnostic tools for dementia based upon the brain's ability to navigate (using human foraging behaviour as an early marker of cognitive decline in typical and atypical ageing).
  • The neuropsychological markers of specific digital harms: highly visual social media and body image concerns (HVSM).
  • Regional and foreign accents: a dissociation in neural processing mechanisms?
  • Investigating comfort distance.
  • Developing a cognitive assessment battery for the assessment of preclinical Alzheimer's disease.
  • Neural substrates of vicarious embarrassment.