About Us

From our Head of Department

Welcome to the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (NDCN). Our aim is to carry out high quality research into the function of the nervous system in health and disease.

We have a multidisciplinary workforce of close to 500 people, mostly based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, but also spread across the University. We are an integrated part of the broader neuroscience community across Oxford, with many links to other departments.

Many of our scientists are also practising clinicians and provide general and specialist care through the Oxford University Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust. Through our DPhil programme, and our very strong group of early career researchers we play an important role in developing the careers of young scientists.

NDCN builds on a long history of research in neurology, brain imaging, eye disorders, and anaesthetics in Oxford which has made major contributions to our understanding of how the brain works and to the development of treatments which have changed lives. Read more about our six divisions.

Major discoveries made by NDCN scientists include the discovery of a type of cell in the eye which helps regulate our body clock, new techniques to image the human brain, devices to make anaesthesia safer, methods to prevent vascular diseases of the brain including stroke and forms of dementia, understanding and treating chronic pain, pioneering treatments such as gene therapy for inherited eye disorders, and the diagnosis and treatment of immunological disorders of the nervous system. 

Professor Kevin Talbot, Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences