News & Events

UNSW researchers are teaming with an Australian drug development company to discover new treatments for the debilitating after-effects of brain injury, including stroke. The research is focusing on the “cascade” effect that occurs after the primary injury, where damage continues to brain cells for hours and days after the primary injury event. The collaboration with drug developers Noxopharm could result in the design of a neuroprotective compound that blocks the ability of calcium to enter healthy nerve cells, stemming the tide of damage.

How reliable are your senses? What neurobiology can you perform with your office chair and a roll of masking tape? What do growing nerve cells look like? What can a comparison of human brains with apes and other animals teach us about how the brain works? Find out on Wednesday 15 March 2017 at the Museum of Human Disease at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) when researchers help people to get hands on with their brains (well, almost).

More than eighty years after the death of the last known Tasmanian tiger, scientists have used high tech imaging techniques to reconstruct the brain architecture of the apex predator for the first time, revealing new information about its intelligence and social life.  The UNSW and Emory University study, published in PLOS ONE, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to scan postmortem specimens of two thylacine brain specimens, both of which were about 100 years old.

Most people are interested in how to slow the ageing process, or at least they get more interested as the years tick by. So when new research promises to have discovered the secret, which happens to include eating more of a food that tastes great but often appears on “eat less” food lists, it is bound to make the headlines.