Mission Statement

To fully understand the brain, it is essential to obtain knowledge on the fundamental mechanisms underlying communication within and between individual nerve cells, as well as how it is that coordinated activity in large networks of interconnected neurons leads to complex behaviours.

The Eccles Institute has established a strong international reputation across all these levels. There is a focus on how individual neurons function, how they communicate with each other, and how these cellular properties change during plasticity. In parallel there is a major effort to understand how information taken in by the visual system is processed and transformed into perceptions and actions.

Members of the Eccles Institute are at the forefront of technological advances, and have established world-class facilities for recording brain activity from the level of single neurons up to the whole brain.

Facilities include 2-photon microscopy, intrinsic optical imaging, intracellular recording both in vivo and in vitro, high-density evoked potential recording from human brain, fMRI (at Canberra Hospital) and, in collaboration with international partners, access to magneto-encephalography (MEG).

Importantly, many of the technologies that give us an international edge have been developed by neuroscientists at the ANU. These include state-of-the-art multifocal visual field analysis of human cortex based on combining electroencephalography, MEG and fMRI, and multi-site recordings from different locations on individual neurons.

The skill base that has allowed these technologies to be developed has a natural flow-on into translational research. As such we have a proven ongoing track record related to medical diagnostic tools and biomedical engineering, including major industry partners such as Seeing Machines. These include the development of technologies for early diagnosis of glaucoma, automated visual field analysis for detecting neurological disorders (e.g. Multiple Sclerosis), and a central role in the Australian bionic eye consortium.