The Brain Dynamics Centre - Convenor of BRAINnet

About Us

Brain health is important to all of us.

Insights from brain science are giving us new insights our mental wellbeing, and the cause and treatment of disorders of mental health.

Disorders of mental health cause 11.5% of the world-wide burden of disease. They are ranked third in terms of health spending.

Early identification, treatment and ultimately prevention for these disorders is a key priority area for mental health service delivery.

Collaboration

The Brain Dynamics Centre is a collaborative network of centres and units:
Cognitive Neuroscience, Traumatic Stress, Psychosis, Depression, and Modelling.

Our administrative base is in the Westmead Millennium Institute. We are part of the University of Sydney and affiliated with University of NSW, Westmead Hospital and Children's Hospital at Westmead.

Brain Dynamics Centre also convenes and international network, BRAINnet (www.brainnet.net).

An Integrative Neuroscience approach

We follow a uniquely 'integrative neuroscience' approach that brings together theories across disciplines, multiple measures and scales of function. 

Our goals are to understand individual brain dynamics, profiles of mental health disorder, and how treatments can be tailored to suit the individual person.

Our research is part of the international BRAINnet network. We make use of the standardized Brain Resource assessments so we can pool information across sites (see Brain Resource Discovery).

BDC research programs are based on integration across:

Theory:
Common themes across disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience and physiology.

Research Techniques:
Clinical assessments, psychological and cognitive assessments, brain imaging (EEG, ERP and MRI, fMRI), and genetics (see Facilities).

Modeling and Analysis:
BDC researchers have established a biophysical model of the brain based on real physiological parameters. We also focus on new statistical methods, such as connectivity and synchrony analyses.

Clinical translation: 
Our goal is to identify brain-gene markers that will help identify risk for mental health disorders, and how to tailor treatments and therapies to best suit each individual person.

High-capacity computing:
We continually develop our severs and network area storage systems to support the integrative approach and multiple modes of testing (see Facilities).

BRAINnet and international database (see BRAINnet summary)

Brain Resource Ltd is an international consortium that has established the first global database on the human brain: the Brain Resource International Database (BRID). It now contains data for thousands of healthy participants and 12 clinical groups.

BRID was set up with standardized assessment protocols so that brain, behavior and genetic information could be pooled. These assessments are now available for scientists to use in their discovery research - and in clinical trials and other applications.

Brain Resource make quantified data from the BRID available to BRAINnet, for scientific purposes, such as publication. BRAINnet is a scientific network that operates independently from Brain Resource (www.brainnet.net).

The Brain Dynamics Centre is the convening site for BRAINnet, which has over 180 members in total. Scientists are able to interact with BRAINnet and with Brain Resource assessments in several different ways (see more at http://www.brainnet.net/overview/datarequest.html).