Dy Kiley Seymour© Cybele Malinowski
PEERING INTO THE MIND’S EYE
Western Sydney University researcher, Dr Kiley Seymour, is investigating the physiological basis of consciousness. Her work could address long-standing questions about the neurological underpinnings of schizophrenia.
Our perception of the world is governed by two separate elements in the brain that interact to enable us to see and process visual information correctly. Seymour describes these elements as bottom-up and top-down systems, respectively. “In schizophrenia the top-down stuff is working overtime to deal with a deficient bottom-up sensory input,” she explains.
“I want to try and understand what’s happening in the brain when patients hallucinate or hold delusional beliefs about the world,” says Seymour. To do this, she is working with a group of volunteers with schizophrenia who undergo MRI scanning while viewing simple, external stimuli. She is hoping to spot issues with the way sensory information is processed during those tests.
SEEING THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES
Research from ARC Laureate Fellow Professor Belinda Medlyn and colleagues from Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment will help scientists understand how forests respond to extreme climate events.
“We know that the climate has already changed, and that will have a significant impact on the vegetation across the world, but these climate-driven changes are really hard to predict because there are so many different pieces to the puzzle,” says Medlyn.
Tarra-Bulga National Park in South Gippsland, Victoria.© Southern Lightscapes-Australia/Moment/Getty Images
Transpiration is one of those aspects. Medlyn developed a model that accurately predicts transpiration regardless of species, which is now incorporated into all major models of forest behaviour.
Her ultimate aim is to develop models that describe forests, and predict how they will respond to climate change by piecing together all available evidence, such as the response to increased carbon dioxide, more frequent and severe drought, and increasing and severe heatwaves.
“I can talk about what happens in each of those elements separately, but putting them together is the tricky part,” she says.
SEARCH FOR A GOLDEN AGE
Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are fuelled by overactive immune cells, such as microglia, that can destroy neurons.
Now, researchers from Professor Gerald Münch’s lab at Western Sydney University have obtained new evidence showing that curcumin, a molecule derived from turmeric, could contribute to a treatment for dementia.
Curcumin had been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in a lab dish — so Münch, with Dr Erika Gyengesi, and other colleagues from his lab, set out to test whether the same was true in a mouse model called GFAP-IL6.
Dr Gyengesi examining mouse brain cross sections.© Cybele Malinowski
“We were surprised that in about four weeks we could reduce the number of active microglia in the GFAP-IL6 mice by about 50%,” says Gyengesi.
Moreover, the cells that were present in the cerebellum and hippocampus were no longer in a hyperactive, pro-inflammatory state, “we turned angry microglia into happy microglia,” explains Münch.
The team are now conducting behavioural tests to evaluate whether curcumin had an effect on the mice’s motor and cognitive functions.
Paying attention to the historical use of the land can help reduce degradation.© Auscape / UIG/ Universal Images Group / Getty Images Plus
Farmers are expected to feed the world, but they also need to recognise their role as guardians of the land, says Western Sydney University’s Dr Gerda Roelvink.
In view of the threat posed by land degradation, Roelvink is collecting stories of farmers who have made radical changes, to great effect, in the way they use and relate to the land.
One example she cites is that of John Weatherstone, a livestock farmer who, after a severe drought, noticed weeds thriving on the neglected boundaries of his property while valuable top soil on the rest of his farm blew away in the wind. He reduced sheep numbers and began producing seeds of local trees and shrubs for wholesale. Among the greatest rewards of this change, was the sight of native birds returning to his land.
“We hope that by making these stories more publicly known, we can inspire other farmers to break away from intensive approaches,” says Roelvink.
A conveyor belt in action.© Russell Eggers, Imatech
A collaboration between Western Sydney University researchers and Imatech, a Sydney industrial solutions company, will help the mining industry repair huge rubber ore-carrying conveyor belts — saving time and money while reducing waste.
The team produced a one-part polymer resin called RubbaFixTM that can quickly and effectively fix damage to ore-carrying conveyor belts.
Western Sydney University’s Dr Patrice Castignolles, and Dr Marion Gaborieau, were charged with finding additives to make the resin a uniform black and to ensure it had the correct electrical resistivity. They managed to find an additive that did both – “Using one additive instead of two cuts the cost and complexity of manufacturing,” says Castignolles.
The benefits of collaborating flow both ways: Castignolles says it’s a great opportunity for students to engage with industry, whereas Imatech CEO, Russell Eggers values access to Western’s state of the art capabilities, “we could not do this without the University”.