UQ Neurosciences - End-Users of Neuroscience

It is hard to think of any sphere of human activity that would not be enhanced by more understanding of the workings of the brain. This diversity of relevance is both the strength and the weakness of the present proposal. NUQ is currently exploring, collectively, the dozens of potential links to the community, seeking feedback and support. The growing NUQ web-site is the organ of interaction that backs up these forays into the community while at the same time providing a tangible demonstration of the effects of community feedback. Some general end user areas involved in this effort include:- Health (GMC, Psychiatry, Psychology, Rehabilitation, Nursing, Geriatrics, Therapies) , Forensics/Law /Animal Ethics, Human Factors, Pharmaceutics, Communications, Engineering and Robotics, Agricultural Chemistry.

End-Users: (Not exclusive: Feel free to add you own suggestions).


I. HEALTH:

A. EDUCATION:

1. GMC:

Neuroscience is now the favoured undergraduate major for pre-medical students in the US, both by selection committees and the students themselves. While UQMedical School selection procedures do not take into consideration the kind or quality of the undergraduate degree, this should change, especially in regard to potential MB BS/PhD students.

2. Nursing:

?Simon Manley

3. Neurology

?Mike Pender

4. Optometry and Ophthalmology

? Chris Wildsoet,

5. Outreach to GPs

Jack Pettigrew, ?Simon Manley, ?John Bourke, ?Graham Huxham

6. Special Needs Education

Dyslexia: James Tresilian and Mark Mon-Williams.

Movement disorders (e.g. DCD "clumsy kids"): James Tresilian, Mark Mon-Williams, Richard Carson.

B. REHABILITATION:

7. Spinal cord: paraplegia/quadraplegia

Peter Snow (Anatomical Sciences), Richard Carson and Stephan Riek (Human Movements Studies)

8. Stroke

(There are exciting new developments here, including Taub's finding that learned disuse, reversible with the right techiques, makes a much larger contribution to loss of function than is commonly recognised).

9. Dependence

?Peter Wilce, Peregrine Osborne, Kuldip Bedi

10. Parkinsons Disease

James Tresilian

C. PSYCHIATRY: Research/Diagnosis/Treatment

11. Schizophrenia

?John McGrath

12. Bipolar Affective Disorder

Steve Miller

13. Personality Disorder:

Bruce Gynther

D. PSYCHOLOGY:

14. Various areas

in teaching, research and clinical practice: (needs to be expanded; psychologists, please help). ?Tian Oei, Mike Humphreys, Gina Geffen

E. OPTHALMOLOGY AND OPTOMETRY:

15. Eye Growth, Emmetropisation and Myopia

?Chris Wildsoet

16. Retina/Macular Degeneration/Retinitis Pigmentosa

?David Vaney

17. Sensori-Motor Disorders:

?Marcello Rosa (VTHRC), Richard Carson and Stephan Riek (Human Movements Studies)

18. Visual Retraining

James Tresilian and Mark Mon-Williams

F. OTORHYNOLARYNGOLOGY: EAR NOSE AND THROAT:

19. Neural deafness

?Jim Pickles

G. GERONTOLOGY:

20. Alzheimer's Disease (and other dementias).

21. Senior Citizen Groups

22. Federal support

II. FORENSICS and LAW

23. Coroner training

(Steve Robinson was keen on this, but has now left for Sydney. Any takers?)

24. Animal Ethics

This is a perfect area where animal researchers and philosophers in NUQ could interact with the wider community. I would think that interested end-users, on both sides of the debate, might be interested in supporting the training of personnel. Any takers? I know that this is one area where we can make a novel, clarifying contribution for the community. (Gordon Grigg in Zoology has already raised the possibility of a graduate course in Animal Ethics). Can someone from Philosophy take this on?

III. HUMAN FACTORS and COMMUNICATIONS:

25. Air Traffic Control

?Graeme Halford

26. Sport

?Richard Carson, James Tresillian

27. Road Transport

?Mark Monwilliams,

28. Police

?

29. Media

30. Telecommunications

... we have a long tradition of collaboration with Telstra Research Laboratories which has included several of our students spending the summer break at the labs in Melbourne. Telstra has, I believe, paid their travel expenses as well as giving them a reasonable wage for their involvement in a research project. Some of these projects have been concerned with neural nets and/or with speech processing. This arrangement has led to some of our students being offered full-time employment following graduation. --Tom Downs

31. Industrial Design

Teleoperation and telepresence: James Tresilian and Mark Mon-Williams.

Robin Burgess-Limerick: Workplace Health and Safety, Road Transport, Preventative Health.

IV. ENVIRONMENT:

32. Sensory Ecology

?Justin Marshall, Kerstin Fritsches

33. Wildlife management

V. ENGINEERING:

A. INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS:

34. Robotics

?Gordon Wyeth, Tom Downs

35. Artificial Neural Nets:

Janet Wiles, Marcus Frean

36. MRI and fMRI

?Steve Wilson, Grieg de Zubicara

37. Neuroscan

?Laurie Geffen

VII. PHARMACEUTICS:

A. AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY:

38. Targeted pesticides

?Paul Ebert, Bronwen Cribb

B. NEUROACTIVE COMPOUNDS

39. Neuropharmacology R&D

? Joe Lynch, Conrad Sernia,

40. Autonomic drugs etc

?Janet Keast, David Adams

VIII. PATHOLOGY LABORATORIES:

41. Genetic screening

42. Neurodiagnosis: Viral PCR, Prion testing etc


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