ANU to host cognitive health research centre

The Australian National University (ANU) has been awarded $2.5 million in the latest NHMRC funding round to host a new Centre of Research Excellence on Cognitive Health. Additionally, ANU Professor Kaarin Anstey has received an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship for cognitive health.

Professor Anstey said the centre will bring leading researchers, clinicians, policymakers and consumers together to focus on cognitive health promotion and prevention of cognitive decline. It will identify risk factors (such as smoking and a sedentary lifestyle), conduct intervention studies to improve cognitive function, and develop guidelines and modelling for new policies.

“The funding will allow us to conduct trials of interventions in general practice and in the community, and to train the next generation of researchers in this emerging field,” Professor Anstey said.

The new centre will be led by Professor Anstey, hosted by ANU Research School of Population Health and sit within ANU Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing. It will have a second major site at the University of Melbourne Department of Psychiatry, led by Professor Nicola Lautenschlager, and will also include researchers from the University of New South Wales, the University of Exeter (UK), Deakin University and the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.