Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health is one of the world’s top six brain research centres. We employ 600 research and support staff and educate 90 post-graduate students each year. Our scientists comprise the largest neuroscience research team in Australia.
Our teams work across a variety of disease states such as stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, motor neuron disease, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, mental illnesses including schizophrenia, depression and addiction. We are world leaders in imaging technology, stroke rehabilitation and epidemiological studies.
Thibault Renoir, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Each one of us is the complex product of nature and nurture, genes and environment. They combine in a myriad of complex ways during embryonic and postnatal development to sculpt our brains and bodies…
Over the show’s three episodes, Todd Sampson tests whether it’s possible to enhance his mind, using exercises designed by scientists.
ABC
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
We live in an age of great public fascination with minds and brains; books about brain plasticity, for instance, regularly make the bestseller lists. This fascination is not merely the product of our thirst…
There are reasons to be sceptical that sex addiction will turn out to be anything as powerful as drug addiction.
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Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Is sex addiction real? That is, is it really a disorder, involving diminished control over behaviour? Questions such as these are difficult to answer because it’s always difficult to distinguish diminished…
An American neuroscientist claims that the key to free will lies in how neurons can rewire each other.
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Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
An American neuroscientist claims to have solved the problem of free will. Peter Tse, who works at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, says that the key to free will lies in how neurons can rewire each…
The benefits of the human papillomavirus vaccine far outweigh risks.
VCU CNS/Flickr
Dave Hawkes, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has attracted attention in the past week for two contradictory reasons: the Japanese government has withdrawn its recommendation for the shot, while public health…
There needs to be a fundamental shift in how a scientist is viewed and measured.
Søren Rajczyk
Jee Hyun Kim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
MATHS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION: We’ve asked our authors about the state of maths and science education in Australia and its future direction. In this instalment, Jee Hyun Kim examines how the culture of academia…
The researchers found a non-invasive way to selectively impair memories.
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Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Michelle See-Tho, The Conversation
Certain types of long term memories can be “rewritten” without drugs or surgery, according to a new study that experts say offers hope for sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder. The study, conducted…
Genetically engineered mice were fitted with wireless LED devices which emitted light, triggering the release of dopamine.
Image from shutterstock.com
Fron Jackson-Webb, The Conversation and Odile Gotts, The Conversation
Scientists have found a way to control the reward centre of the brain, using a miniature wireless device that emits light and causes the brain to release dopamine, the chemical associated with pleasure…
Neuroplasticity refers to the way in which the cells in the brain change in response to experience.
Hey Paul Studios
Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The human brain is the most complex and extraordinary structure in the known universe. And while there are many awe-inspiring facets of the brain, I will focus here on “neuroplasticity”, a term that has…
Are there things you’d rather not remember?
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Jee Hyun Kim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
If you could erase your memories, which ones would you choose? As a neuroscientist, one of my raisons d’etre is to achieve, in a way, some form of memory erasure, especially for individuals that suffer…
Researchers decoded the whole mitochondrial DNA of five Neanderthal men, one of whom belonged to the El Sidron site (pictured) in Asturias, northern Spain, in 2009.
EPA/CSIC
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
It now appears that the scientist who seemed to be advocating that we clone Neanderthals was suggesting only that “we need to start talking about it.” Ethics is an essential part of such a conversation…
Our implicit associations reveal more about our true attitudes than what we explicitly state.
Image from shutterstock.com
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The infamous Youtube video capturing a young man abusing women on a Melbourne bus for the crime of singing in French, and being supported in his violent tirade by fellow passengers, raises the uncomfortable…
That’s me: Scientists agree animals are conscious, but public attitudes still lag behind.
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Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Are animals conscious? Notoriously, the famous 17th century philosopher René Descartes thought they were not. He believed that possession of a soul was necessary for rational thought and for consciousness…
We all know the past disappears.
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Jee Hyun Kim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
If memory can be defined as “a past that becomes a part of me”, can forgetting be defined as “a past that is no longer a part of me”? Smokers who have abstained for years may not consciously be able to…
Did you forget to lock the door, or just forget to pay proper attention?
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Jee Hyun Kim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Memory is difficult to define without being circular. People often define memory as “something you can remember”. But we cannot deny the existence of a memory when there is no recollection. Sigmund Freud…
Brains are supposed to change in response to experiences; that’s a sign they’re working as they are designed to.
Stephen Anthony
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Whenever I hear dire predictions concerning the social impact of new technologies, I recall a similar prediction made nearly 2,500 years ago. In the Phaedrus, Plato recounts a myth, according to which…
Neuroscientists are making great strides in addiction studies, even with a limited access to drugs.
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Jhodie Duncan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Criminalisation of many drugs of abuse has done little to deter their use. Recent estimates tell us nearly one in 20 individuals aged between 15 and 64 are experimenting with illicit drug use worldwide…
Our actions may be fully caused and determined by events that precede our very existence, but not all causes are alike.
Josef Grunig/Flickr
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
For most of the last couple of centuries, philosophers have had the question of free will largely to themselves (prior to that date, the distinction between philosophy and the natural sciences was less…
When it comes to being “fortunate”, context is king.
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Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Some people seem born lucky. Everything they touch turns to gold. Others are dogged by misfortune. It’s not just people who might be lucky or unlucky – it can be single acts. When the ball hits a post…
The monologues in our minds could one day be converted into language, according to researchers who have succeeded in decoding electrical activity in the area of the brain that recognises sounds. The development…