The Millennium Foundation

Neuroscience and Vision

What is neuroscience?

Neuroscience is the study of the brain and nervous system, including molecular neuroscience, cellular neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, psychophysics, computational modelling.

Neuroscientists study the nervous system, including the neural basis of behaviour; parts of the nervous system such as the visual or auditory systems; the function of groups of neurons (nerve cells); what individual neurons do; what happens at the synapse (a specialised junction at which a nerve cell communicates with a target cell); ion channels in a neuronal membrane; and the genetic basis of neuronal function.

What sort of neuroscience and vision research is conducted at Westmead Millennium Institute?

There are two research centres within this group:

The Brain Dynamics Centre (BDC)
The goal of the Brain Dynamics Centre research is to shed light on the workings of the human brain, and the cause and treatment of brain-related disorders.

BDC is a world leader in using an integrative approach to imaging the brain. BDC combines information from behaviour, brain imaging and genetics to identify markers of mental illness and treatment evaluation. BDC has developed a number of entirely new ways to analyse and model patterns of brain dysfunction and response to treatment.

The Centre for Vision Research (CVisR)
CVisR has identified the patterns of eye diseases and causes of vision loss in Australians, as well as other sensory impairment, in both older and younger age groups.

The Centre has also identified risk factors for common eye diseases and vision loss, particularly modifiable factors that could prevent eye disease and reduce the burden of visual impairment.