To wrap up an outstanding week of dementia research in Sydney, today — alongside the Brain and Mind Centre Alzheimer’s group — we hosted a Symposium at the University of Sydney all about Sleep, Precision Biomarkers and Brain Ageing 🩸🧠💤
The event brought together researchers from across both programs for a morning of science, highlighting new insights at the intersection of Alzheimer’s Disease, sleep, and neurodegeneration.
The wonderful keynotes included:
🎤 Prof Brendan Lucey (Washington University in St. Louis / University of Minnesota), who opened with a deep dive into the mechanisms linking sleep to soluble AD biomarkers: production, clearance, and beyond.
🎤 Prof Jane Alty (University of Tasmania / ISLAND Cognitive Clinic), who took us through remote, multimodal profiling of idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder in Tasmania.
Our brilliant EMCRs also participated in a rapid-fire showcase of their research:
- Aaron Lam: sleep brain activity and basal forebrain volume
- Anastasia Suraev: targeting the orexin system in mild cognitive impairment
- Jie Yang: torque clustering for autonomous pattern discovery in sleep data
- Lachlan Churchill: imaging signatures of phenoconversion in isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder
- Nathan Cross: a multicompartment MRI framework for brain fluid dynamics in ageing
- Nicole Espinosa Zarlenga: brain systems and neurodegenerative co-pathologies in sleep disturbance
- Shawn Kong: night-time heat stress in an ageing world
The day concluded with a panel discussion featuring Prof Brendan Lucey, Pro
f Jane Alty, Prof Wei Chen, and A/Prof Elie Matar, who shared diverse perspectives on the opportunities and challenges ahead!
All round, it was a fantastic day! ✨