The Ever-Changing Brain

Tuesday 17th January 2023 from 19:00 for 19:30
Abingdon United Football Club (Northcourt Rd, OX14 1PL, Abingdon)

Please note our move to the third Tuesday of the month for 2023.

Our brains adapt whenever we practice a new skill, such as playing a musical instrument or learning to juggle. Our brains also adapt as we get older, or following damage such as stroke. Changes in our lifestyle, like taking up exercise or altering our sleep patterns, can also affect our brains and can influence risk of cognitive decline or dementia. Understanding how the brain adapts to change can help us to design new rehabilitation treatments, to promote healthy ageing, or to enhance learning.

This talk will discuss how brain scanning technology is used to investigate how the brain changes with experience, learning and recovery from damage. Such investigations shed light on the possibilities and limits for changing the brain and help inform design of novel clinical treatments and diagnostics for brain disorders.

Speaker: Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg

Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg is a Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Director of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), based at the University of Oxford. WIN is a multi-disciplinary research facility that uses brain imaging to bridge the gap between laboratory neuroscience and human health, by performing multi-scale studies spanning from animal models through to human populations. Heidi originally studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford, before specialising in Neuroscience. She has been primarily based in Oxford throughout her career but has spent time as a visiting researcher at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and the University of Oslo in Norway.