Art and Neuroscience

Over the last 5 years I have organised a number of public engagement activities. In the last 3 years I have developed the Art and Neuroscience Project with Dr Jim Harris at the Ashmolean Museum.

We might think that we can see everything that is happening around us, and it is often said that ‘seeing is believing’, indicating that visual perception is considered one of the most trustworthy means of obtaining information about what is happening around us. However, research has revealed that perception does not capture as much information about the world as we would think .

My interests lie in examining the neurobiological relationship between visual perception and art.

A number of brain diseases affect various types of bodily movements, either producing unwanted movements such as tremors or reducing movement by making the patient stiff and slow, or sometimes both.  One such condition is Parkinson’s disease which is where my research interests lie.

In my research clinics, I use a variety of quantitative experimental methods, based on precise measurement of subtle abnormalities of the speed and coordination of various movements such as saccades (fast eye movements) and hand movements.

There are two main strands to my work:

(a) Investigation of patients with very early stage Parkinson’s disease. The aim is to develop easy to apply and relatively cheap neurophysiological tests to aid more accurate diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression.  These quantitative tests will also be used to monitor the response to new therapies in clinical trials.  

(b) Investigation of the neurophysiological effects of, and mechanism underlying, Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson’s disease. This is in collaboration with the Oxford Functional Neurosurgery Group.

More recently, I have started working with Professor Glyn Humphries and Dr Nele Demeyere, using a new tablet computer based system to test cognitive function in Parkinson’s patients.

_Funding

UCB Pharma

Dementia and Neurodegenerative Research Network (DeNDRon)

European Commission

Wellcome trust

I chair the Clinical Neurosciences Society