I am a cognitive neuroscientist and experimental psychologist with a strong focus on methodology and theory in the Cognitive Neural Sciences Lab of the School of Psychology and the Cognition, Ageing, and Neurodegenerative Disease Laboratory in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. My research investigates the neurobiological foundations of higher-order cognition, intelligence, and motor control, with particular emphasis on the neurogenetic and frontal cortico-basal ganglia systems involved in their organisation and coordination.
 
I am currently involved in several large interdisciplinary projects investigating neurological disease and lifespan cognitive change. These include work examining the nature and progression of Parkinson’s disease (the PredictPD Study), the long-term consequences of traumatic brain injury (the Forecasting Long-Term Impairment for Neurodegenerative Disease Risk Following Traumatic Brain Injury Study; FIND-TBI), and a project mapping the latent structure of cognitive and motor abilities across the lifespan and the genetic contributions to their development and later-life change (the Neurocognitive and Genomics cohort study; NeuroCogGen). Across these projects, we investigate how genomic and cognitive information can be used to improve the prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of neurodegenerative and neurological conditions.
 
My work adopts a model-based systems neuroscience approach, in which theoretical neural architectures are evaluated using converging lines of evidence from behavioural experiments, individual differences methods, computational and mathematical modelling, genotyping, EEG and other imaging methods, neurostimulation techniques, and comprehensive behavioural testing. The aim of this approach is to generate causal and mechanistic accounts of disturbances to, and lifespan fluctuations in, the cognitive and executive abilities required for goal-directed, adaptive behaviour.
 
In particular, I investigate cognitive mechanisms that are vulnerable to psychiatric dysfunction, neurodegenerative disease, and ageing processes, including response inhibition, cognitive control, and related executive functions. Much of my work focuses on reaction time and response time, and on how these measures vary and fluctuate across tasks, contexts, and cognitive demands. Because these processes depend heavily on dopaminergic fronto-striatal circuitry, their disruption provides a particularly sensitive behavioural window into neurological dysfunction and neurodegenerative change.
 
A central goal of this work is to determine whether the mechanisms underlying performance in cognitive tasks can be decomposed into separable components and to understand how these components interact and unfold during the production of a single decision or response. To address this, I use decomposition models of evidence accumulation, which allow us to estimate parameters corresponding to distinct cognitive, neural, and motor processes that contribute to behaviour. These models provide a powerful framework for linking behavioural performance to underlying neural systems.
 
In our laboratory, we develop, program, and validate novel experimental paradigms that are conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically robust. These tasks are designed to isolate specific cognitive components and to evaluate their utility, sensitivity, and specificity as markers of cognitive decline. In parallel, we test existing computational models that yield parameters representing underlying cognitive mechanisms and decision dynamics, and we map these parameters onto neurophysiological signals (e.g., EEG and MRI) and genetic variation.
 
Through this integrative approach, dysfunction, disease, and degeneration may plausibly be detected using cognitive and behavioural assessments many years before the emergence of more overt clinical symptoms, such as psychomotor disturbances or significant memory impairments. Identifying such early markers has the potential to improve early diagnosis and enable earlier intervention in neurological and neurodegenerative disease.
 
More broadly, my research is organised around four interconnected themes:
1. the psychonomics and psychometrics of individual differences in intelligence and cognitive processes;
2. the philosophical foundations of experimental cognitive science and statistical inference, including the social influences, implications, and responsibilities of scientific practice;
3. the identification of potential targets for pharmaceutical, nutritional, technological, psychological, and physical interventions aimed at enhancing cognitive and motor function in healthy individuals and mitigating decline associated with ageing and disease; and
4. the construction of formal models of pathology based on behavioural and cognitive assessment to improve the precision and sensitivity of medical diagnostics.
 
Central to my research, teaching, and supervision is a commitment to justice, equity, and the promotion of access, representation, and diversity within education and scientific research. I am also committed to improving the quality and credibility of scientific practice through the promotion of reproducible and open research. Through these efforts, I aim to contribute to a more rigorous, reliable, and equitable scientific community.