About the Department of Neuroscience
Our Focus
At the Department of Neuroscience, our major research focuses on the cellular and molecular basis of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. Although we are only beginning to scratch the surface of understanding these diseases, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to have a deep understanding of the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in normal nervous system function, maintenance, and development if we are to understand human disorders of the brain, be they degenerative or developmental in origin. Only then will we be able to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools.
Expertise and technologies
Our activity is currently spread over two campuses; on the main Institute campus adjacent to the Maudsley Hospital, and opposite, the Centre for the Cellular Basis of Behaviour (CCBB) in the James Black Centre on the KCH campus.
In 2013, all of the Department, together with colleagues from other Departments will move into a new purpose built building, the Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute. This is an exciting development that will assemble the Department within a multidisciplinary environment dedicated to understanding basic brain disease mechanisms. The Department is headed by Professor Noel Buckley and our research encompasses state-of-the-art molecular and cell biology approaches, including genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, stem cell biology, advanced histology and cell imaging including live-cell video microscopy and confocal microscopy, electrophysiology and behavioural studies.
All of these techniques are honed toward unravelling molecular and cellular dysfunction in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer¹s, Parkinson¹s and Huntington¹s Diseases, Motor Neuron Disease and psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and depression as well as understanding the underlying pathways regulating neural stem cell development.