ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM

Australia's science future 3-4 May 2000
Full listing of papers

Professor Ian Hickie is a clinical and research psychiatrist now based at the University of New South Wales. He has specialised in the application of a variety of neurobiological techniques (Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), molecular biology, psychopharmacology and genetic epidemiology) in patients with a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. He completed his graduate and doctoral studies in Australia before continuing his research as a Harkness Fellow at Duke University in North Carolina. Since returning to Australia his research has focused mainly on the application of neuroimaging techniques in patients with severe depression, with current emphasis on the utility of functional MRI. He has also published extensively in the areas of medicine and psychiatry, with particular reference to behavioural immunology.

Symposium themes - Mind and brain

The neurobiological basis of abnormal behaviour: Providing insights into the human condition
by Ian Hickie

Abstract
The intensive neurobiological study of major neuropsychiatric disorders (for example, manic-depressive illness, melancholia and schizophrenia) has the capacity to reveal causal paths, opportunities for prevention and appropriate treatments. Importantly, however, it also challenges many of our basic concepts of the biological substrate of fundamental human attributes such as consciousness, motivation, abstract cognition and emotional states. In this presentation, examples from the applications of new technologies (for example, functional neuroimaging and molecular biology), typically in association with new conceptual approaches (for example, cognitive neurosciences), in patients with these disorders will be used to highlight the remarkable opportunities for advances in understanding both normal and abnormal human behaviour.