Our brain research
QIMR Berghofer’s Brain & Mental Health Program investigates brain health across our entire lifespan.
The aim is to pioneer proactive, personalised health knowledge no matter what age we are.
Brains: remarkable yet complex
Our scientists investigate clinical conditions from pre-birth, to adolescence, to diseases of ageing alongside life-long conditions.
Some of the conditions our team are researching include complications of pre-term birth, childhood sleep, epilepsy, ADHD, autism, trauma, eating-related disorders, self-harm, addiction, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, OCD, bipolar, suicide, MS, ataxia, MND, Parkinson’s and dementia.
Our researchers use a mix of laboratory, clinical, and population methods to study brain health and disease. This includes cell and organoid models to understand brain biology, combined with genetics, biological markers, and multi omics to explain risk and resilience. Brain imaging, measures of brain activity, and cognitive testing are used to link brain function with thinking, emotion, and behaviour. Clinical, behavioural, and digital tools (like speech analysis and wearable or web-based assessments) help capture real world symptoms.
Data driven approaches bring all this information together to identify and test treatments in clinical studies. These studies range from small trials to large population studies, and can include medications, lifestyle approaches, brain stimulation, and therapeutic virtual reality.
Our brainiacs
Professor Bryan Day
Professor Bryan Day is the Group Leader of the Sid Faithfull Brain Cancer Laboratory at QIMR Berghofer and an internationally recognised expert in brain cancer.
Professor Rajiv Khanna
Professor Rajiv Khanna obtained his doctorate degree from India and undertook his post-doctoral training at QIMR Berghofer. He is the Coordinator of QIMR Berghofer Centre for Immunotherapy and Vaccine Development.
Associate Professor Ian Harding
Associate Professor Ian Harding leads the Cerebellum and Neurodegeneration Research Group (CNRG). The CNRG uses neuroimaging, fluid biomarkers, and digital assessment tools to understand brain and behavioural changes in people with cerebellar diseases, other forms of neurodegeneration, and aging.
Professor Anthony White
Professor Anthony White is a Principal Research Fellow (Senior Group Leader) at QIMR Berghofer, where he leads a group researching cellular processes in neurodegenerative diseases with a focus on developing new human cell models of neurodegeneration.
Associate Professor Michelle Lupton
Associate Professor Lupton leads the Neurogenetics and Dementia Research Group who focus on those at high risk and in the earliest disease stages of Alzheimer’s disease, for the identification of affordable, accessible and scalable biomarkers for dementia diagnosis and screening, to be prepared for the best use of newly developed drugs and lifestyle interventions as they become available.
Professor Murat Yücel
Professor Murat Yücel is the Program Director for Brain and Mental Health and Group Leader of the Cognitive Fitness Lab at QIMR Berghofer.
The Cognitive Fitness Group uses cognitive neuroscience to create digital tools that measure, monitor and help optimise brain health.
Professor Luca Cocchi
Professor Luca Cocchi leads the Clinical Brain Networks Group which focuses on understanding how the structural and functional wiring of the brain underpin health and pathology.
The laboratory uses a variety of neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and computational techniques and operates one of the first transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation facilities in Australia.
Dr Brittany Mitchell
Dr Mitchell is investigating the genetic and biological basis of neuropsychiatric disorders. By analysing large-scale genetic and epidemiological data, her work seeks to uncover risk factors and biological pathways that explain why some people are more vulnerable to illness and why treatment response varies. Her work has contributed to the discovery of novel genetic markers for neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, with the ultimate aim of enabling earlier detection and more personalised, evidence-based care to reduce the burden of mental illness.
Professor Sarah Medland
Professor Sarah Medland leads the Psychiatric Genetics Group which focuses on investigating the genetic and environmental factors that influence mental health conditions and the impact of non-psychiatric conditions on mental health across the lifespan.
The group also has a strong focus on the genetics of brain structure and on women’s health.
Professor Eske Derks
Professor Eske Derks is Professor of Psychiatric Genetics and Group Leader of the Translational Neurogenomics Laboratory and as such plays an important role in identifying gene mechanisms that increase the risk of mental health disorders. The overarching objective of her research is to understand the downstream molecular consequences underlying statistical associations as this will be essential for translating genetic findings into the clinic.
Dr Nic Waddell
Dr Nic Waddell leads the Medical Genomics Team and analyses next generation sequence data to address clinical challenges in a variety of diseases.
Ultimately, the team aim to enable ‘personalised medicine’ for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Dr Lachlan Harris
Dr Lachlan Harris leads the The Cancer Neuroscience Laboratory which aims to translate insights from fundamental neuroscience research and apply these to brain cancer, with a particular interest in glioblastoma, which is the most common malignant primary brain tumour in adults.
Associate Professor James Roberts
James Roberts leads the Brain Modelling Group at QIMR Berghofer.
The Brain Modelling Group models and analyses brain structure and dynamics in health and disease. Our main area is computational neuroscience, at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and neuroscience.
Associate Professor Miguel Rentería
Associate Professor Miguel Rentería leads the Computational Neurogenomics Laboratory which works at the intersection of human genetics, data science, digital biomarkers, and brain health. Their research focuses on understanding the genetic and molecular foundations of complex brain-related traits and diseases, with Parkinson's disease (PD) as the primary focus, and extending to sleep disorders, dementia, depression, chronic pain, and self-harm behaviours.
Professor Nick Martin
Professor Nick Martin leads the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory which seeks to identify the particular genes involved in complex disease aetiology. It performs longitudinal studies with twins on a wide range of complex traits of medical and behavioural interest.
Associate Professor Vanessa Beesley
Associate Professor Vanessa Beesley is a behavioural scientist and Head of the Psychedelic Medicine and Supportive Care Lab. Currently, she leads a national telehealth counselling trial for cancer caregivers and a world first psilocybin-assisted therapy trial for prolonged grief and is a paid chief investigator on a group-based MDMA-assisted therapy trial for treatment-resistant climate-related PTSD.
Dr Paulo Martins
Dr Martins’ main research interest is cellular immunotherapy. His primary focus is to translate research towards the development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of virus-associated cancers.
Dr Martins continues to develop novel immunotherapies for the treatment of virus-related cancers.
Our Research in Action – Across the Lifespan
Babies
The ELITE clinical trial is helping protect newborn brains using Australia’s first seizure detection algorithm combined with wireless EEG in neonatal intensive care. In children, AI based sleep diagnostics enable at home monitoring with the aim of reducing paediatric sleep clinic waitlists by up to 50%.
Children
Population research like the Australian Child Maltreatment Study shows that a large proportion of Australians experience maltreatment in childhood, with strong links to mental and physical health problems and risky behaviours later in life.
Adolescents
Large international studies tackle digital and mental health challenges, including the world’s largest study of Problematic Internet Use, involving 50+ researchers, 2,500 students, and 10 European countries. Around one third of teenagers may experience problematic internet use, with most preferring online self help tools over professional or family support. Aussie teenagers now spend over 20 hours per week online.
Adults
Big data and genetic research meantime has identified hundreds of new genetic links across major conditions, including depression (300 genetic links), obsessive compulsive disorder (249 genes, some causal), osteoarthritis (513 genetic links), and nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (28 genetic loci). Brain disorders studied include Alzheimer’s disease, childhood dementia, motor neuron disease, Parkinson’s disease, cerebellar ataxia, and dementia, enabling better diagnosis, early detection, staging, and treatment.
Innovative treatments are showing strong promise. Personalised transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment resistant depression achieved a 52% response and 33% remission rates, outperforming standard approaches. Virtual reality exposure therapy improves engagement and emotional responses in OCD treatment.
Brain Cancer
The Sid Faithfull Brain Cancer Laboratory is dedicated to building an internationally competitive, translationally focused neuro-oncology research program at QIMR Berghofer for scientists at all career stage
Our direct focus is to investigate the biological processes critical for the development of these intractable tumours, commercialise our research findings and bring our novel antibody therapies to clinical trial to improve the lives of brain cancer patients.
The Sid Faithfull Brain Cancer Laboratory focuses on glioblastoma (GBM) which is the most common and aggressive form of adult brain cancer. GBM kills approximately 1,900 people per year in Australia. Survival rates are very poor with a median survival of approximately 15 months. Meaningful advancements in patient treatment and survival have not changed for decades. New and better treatment therapies are urgently needed.
The laboratory also studies a number of paediatric brain cancers including medulloblastoma and an incurable form of brain stem glioma called Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG), previously known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG). Our goal is to design therapies that specifically treat the tumour site while keeping the healthy developing brain intact in these young patients.
Did you know?
Your brain generates your entire inner world
Every thought, emotion, personality, imagination, sense of self and perception of reality comes via 86 billion neurons interacting.
Brains run on surprisingly little power
Brains use about 20 watts of energy – about the same as a dimly lit light bulb. It still manages consciousness, emotion, movement, memory and decision making all at once, which no man-made system can do.
Brains are in a constant state of re-wiring
Brains are plastic, physically changing with experience. Learning a new skill, making a memory, or even recovering after injury can alter neural connections. This neuroplasticity continues throughout our lives.
Brains can see into the future
Your brain isn’t just responding to what’s happening now, it’s constantly predicting what will happen next and updating itself when it gets things wrong! Vision, movement, language and even emotions rely on this prediction system.
Our brains never experience reality directly
Everything you perceive (colour, sound, pain, taste, time) is a constructed experience. There is no colour or sound inside the brain, just electrical signals. Your brain builds a convincing simulation of reality from limited sensory data.
Our brains are learning, even if we don’t realise it
Your brain constantly absorbs patterns, rules, and emotional cues without conscious effort. You can improve at tasks, recognise faces, or sense danger without being able to explain how—much of intelligence is unconscious.