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Supervision

Prospective students are encouraged to contact Kristijan to discuss potential research projects and opportunities.

Kristijan Jovanoski

BBiomed(Hons), MPhil Melb, DPhil Oxon

Postdoctoral Research Scientist

Research Summary

Dr Kristijan Jovanoski is a neuroscientist building a research program at the interface of learning, memory, and neurodegeneration. During his doctoral training, he investigated how dopaminergic neurons encode reward in memory circuits. As a postdoctoral researcher, he combined large-scale behavioural, imaging, and omics approaches to develop a mechanistic circuit model of maladaptive reward seeking that was published in Nature. This work demonstrated how dysregulation of dopamine signalling drives pathological behaviours, with important parallels to impulse control disorders affecting approximately one in six Parkinson's patients treated with dopamine agonists.

He now applies state-of-the-art approaches in machine learning, digital pathology, genetics, and transcriptomics to examine whether similar neurochemical vulnerabilities contribute to dementia and selective neuronal loss later in life. Parkinson's disease (PD) involves degeneration of dopaminergic neurons and may progress to Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). PDD is currently distinguished from dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) using a clinical one-year rule that is pragmatic remains biologically unresolved. These Lewy body dementias lack effective disease-modifying therapies and remain among the most frequently misdiagnosed forms of dementia.

Biography

Kristijan completed a Bachelor of Biomedicine (Neuroscience with Honours in Biochemistry) and a Master of Philosophy (Physics) at the University of Melbourne, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy (Neuroscience) at Magdalen College, the University of Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. During his DPhil, he served as co-President of Cortex Club, Oxford's Neuroscience Society (2016–2017). His long-term vision is to build a distinctive research program that unites basic science with translational insight, with the ultimate goal of preserving memory well into old age.

Recent Publications

Jovanoski KD✉ and Waddell S✉ (2025). Striking parallels between the dopaminergic systems of flies and mammals. The Handbook of Dopamine. Chapter 23, 287-303. Cragg SJ & Walton ME (Eds.), Elsevier.

Jovanoski KD✉, Duquenoy L, Mitchell J, Kapoor I, Treiber CD, Croset V, Dempsey G, Parepalli S, Cognigni P, Otto N, Felsenberg J, and Waddell S✉ (2023). Dopaminergic systems create reward seeking despite adverse consequences. Nature. 623, 356-365.