Studying brain-behaviour relationships during adolescence

Summary The project aims to examine associations between neurodevelopment during adolescence and behavioural and mental health outcomes. There will also be opportunity to explore the influence of environmental factors such as parenting behaviour and early life stress on the maturation of the brain.

Project Details

We are seeking an enthusiastic and motivated candidate for a Masters/Honours project. The successful candidate will contribute to an ongoing longitudinal study that investigates associations between the environment, brain development and mental health. Assessments of risk-enriched participants began in 2004 (~12 years of age), with four waves of assessment completed up to age 19. The study is currently conducting a 5th follow-up of participants who are now in their late 20’s. The project will be supervised by A/Prof Sarah Whittle while working closely with Divyangana Rakesh (PhD Candidate).

The project aims to examine associations between neurodevelopment during adolescence and behavioural and mental health outcomes. There will also be opportunity to explore the influence of environmental factors such as parenting behaviour and early life stress on the maturation of the brain.

The student will be responsible for crafting more specific research hypotheses, conducting a literature review of the area, the development of the proposal as well as data processing, and statistical analyses. Publication of results is expected at the end of the project. Importantly, the student should ideally be comfortable in or be keen to learn basic coding (MATLAB, Python, R), and any experience in programming will be looked upon favourably.

Please contact rakeshd@student.unimelb.edu.au for more information.