The Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases (WCARD) is part of the Division of Neuroscience within the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN). Research in the WCARD focuses on the maintenance of a healthy nervous system during ageing, by understanding how its activity changes during damage to nerves and the surrounding tissues, and investigating new techniques to repair damaged neurons. Our long-term goal is to improve the quality of life of patients affected by lifelong and age-related diseases of the nervous system.

Our research is geared toward:

i) understanding physiological and molecular mechanisms that drive disease conditions

ii) harness our scientific knowledge to develop new therapeutic strategies to restore normal sensory function and to better repair injury.

Currently, our 4 major research themes are:

• Chronic Pain: Delineating new pathways and mechanisms of chronic pain to allow us to identify innovative targets in neurons and non-neuronal cell.
• Regeneration: Aiming to restore function after CNS injury by developing regenerative therapies that target the ongoing inflammation and glial scar to facilitate endogenous repair mechanisms.
• Hearing: Studying the genetics of age-related hearing loss in humans and mice to understand the pathological mechanisms that drive this process.
• Migraine: Delineating the underlying mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets for migraine and related primary headache disorders from bench to bedside and back.