Imagine not being able to talk to people, or not understand what they're saying because your speech centres have been affected by stroke. Or not being able to walk because of a spinal cord injury. Or not being able to feed yourself because of weakness involving your arms due to Motor Neurone Disease. These are confronting thoughts, but these are the problems that are faced by many Australians today, and it is these diseases and others that the Brain Foundation is helping to overcome through its research and support programs.

Professor Matthew Kiernan
2002 Brain Foundation Grant Recipient

Since 1970 the Brain Foundation has supported hundreds of research projects throughout Australia.  Brain Foundation grants have helped to discover:

• a new treatment for migraine based on the discovery of the relationship of a chemical transmitter serotonin to migraine
• new surgical methods of stopping tremor and other involuntary movements
• a serum which contains ApoE4, a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease
• a method of detecting and correcting blood vessel spasms following strokes, injuries and operations
• a procedure which enables brain tumours to be identified more readily and provide a check on complete removal of tumours using ultrasound
• the location of the gene for a common form of inherited neuropathy causing weakness of the hands and legs (on chromosome 17)
• a method of analysing the tremor of Parkinson’s disease to distinguish it from other causes of trembling
• the gene responsible for compression paralysis in families with sensitivity of peripheral nerves to pressure.

During the past seven years, the Brain Foundation has contributed over $3,000,000 to fund research by neurologists, neurosurgeons and neuroscientists in the following areas:

• Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia
• Brain Tumour
• Deafness
• Epilepsy (affects more 45,000 Australians)
• Head Injury
• Hydrocephalus
• Migraine (affects more than two million Australians)
• Motor Neurone Disease
• Muscle Disease
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Various aspects of neurosurgery
• Parkinson’s Disease (affects more than 35,000 Australians)
• Peripheral Nerve Disease
• Renal failure
• Stroke (40,000 Australians annually suffer a stroke)
• Vertigo, balance and Meniere’s Disease.

These disorders alone affect more than 2.5 million Australians, ranging from the very young to the very old.

Brain Foundation grants have been awarded to researchers working in many institutions in all Australian States and Territories including: