UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences

The rate and extent of damage to the spinal cord and brain following spinal cord injury have long been a mystery. Now, a joint research effort by UCL, the University of Zurich and University Hospital Balgrist has found evidence that patients already have irreversible tissue loss in the spinal cord within 40 days of injury.

UCL is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor John O'Keefe as Inaugural Director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre.

Researchers at UCL will play a major role in an international science project to examine the role of zinc in public health and well-being.

Professor Peng Tee Khaw, Professor of Glaucoma and Ocular Healing and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, has been knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for 2013.

An avatar system that enables people with schizophrenia to control the voice of their hallucinations is being developed by researchers at UCL with support from the Wellcome Trust.

Different brain areas are activated when we choose for ourselves to suppress an emotion, compared to situations where we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University.

An international team led by researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology has identified a set of tests that could help identify whether - and how - Huntington’s disease (HD) is progressing in groups of people who are not yet showing symptoms.

When children with conduct problems see images of others in pain, key parts of their brains under-react, according to new research published today in Current Biology.

Predicting the winner of a sporting event with accuracy close to that of a statistical computer programme could be possible with proper training, according to researchers.

Up to 10 per cent of the population are affected by specific learning disabilities (SLDs), such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and autism, translating to 2 or 3 pupils in every classroom according to a new study.

Researchers at the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging (CABI) have embarked on a rather unique Easter egg hunt and have been scanning chicken eggs for a new Channel 4 programme called Easter Eggs Live.

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New research, published in Neuron, gives insight into how single mutations in the VCP gene cause a range of neurological conditions including a form of dementia called Inclusion Body Myopathy, Paget’s Disease of the Bone and Frontotemporal Dementia (IBMPFD), and the motor neuron disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

UCL guidelines on open access and a publishing guide are available to UCL researchers.

The RCUK Policy on Open Access introduces, with effect from 1 April 2013, new open access requirements for research papers funded by the Research Councils.

A new mobile app developed by UCL scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging will enable the team to carry out on an unprecedented scale experiments that previously could only be conducted on small groups of volunteers in the lab.

The UCL News podcast gives you the opportunity to listen to the latest news and research from around UCL every fortnight. Split up into three parts, you can either listen to the podcast all in one go, or save features for later listening.

Individuals with psychogenic disease (i.e. physical illness stemming from emotional or mental stresses) have brains that function differently to people with organic diseases, according to new research from UCL and the University of Cambridge.

People with disabilities are at a greater risk of being the victims of violence and of suffering mental ill health when victimised, according to research published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The Human Brain Project has been officially selected as one of the European Commission’s two FET Flagship projects. The new project will unite European efforts to address one of the greatest challenges of modern science: understanding the human brain.

A Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association funded research project at UCL has given new insights into the structure and function of an MND gene called C9ORF72. The work is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

23 postdoctoral researchers from 14 different countries have been awarded Marie Curie Individual Fellowships. The awards will enable researchers to spend up to two years working with research teams across all schools at UCL.

UCL and the Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai, have entered into a new agreement to establish a major drug discovery and development collaboration today.

Source: Press release from the Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL researchers have discovered how the brain assesses confidence in its decisions. The findings explain why some people have better insight into their choices than others.

Congratulations to Professors Dmitri Rusakov (UCL Institute of Neurology), Robin Ali (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) and Patrick Haggard (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience), who have all recently been awarded European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants. These highly competitive research grants are among the most sought after Principal Investigator awards offered from the ERC, and as stated on the ERC’s website: “allow exceptional established research leaders of any nationality and any age to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective research fields or other domains.”

Training human volunteers to control their own brain activity in precise areas of the brain can enhance fundamental aspects of their visual sensitivity, according to a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience.