Seven minutes in stroke
1. What inspired you towards neuroscience?
During my undergraduate studies in Exercise and Sports
Science, I completed a motor control and development unit where I studied the
link between movement and the central nervous system (CNS), and what happens
when the CNS, and in particular the brain, is injured or diseased. This ignited
a passion in me to try to understand as much as I could about this link between
the brain and movement, and in particular, how exercise can be used to help
people recover from, or deal with, neurological or neuromuscular conditions.
2. Why stroke?
One in 6 Australians will experience a stroke in their
lifetime, and many of them will be left with long-lasting disability and at an
increased risk of suffering a recurrent stroke. So few patients get the
rehabilitation they need, and what they do get does little to improve their
fitness, muscle strength and endurance, or reduce vascular risk factors. There
is an urgent need for evidence-based rehabilitation interventions that promote
recovery and reduce the risk of recurrent stroke. Exercise and physical
activity is recommended after stroke, but unfortunately, it remains unclear
what should be prescribed and when. Given my expertise in exercise physiology, I
have a significant opportunity to make important contributions to the knowledge
about exercise prescription and establishing a pathway from acute care to
long-term health and well-being after stroke. This is a critical need for
stroke survivors and will potentially transform the current rehabilitation
landscape.
3. What have been the highs so far?
Stroke survivors want answers to questions such as what
exercise they should be doing, how much and how hard they should exercise, and
when should they begin exercise training. The fact that I am leading research
that will hopefully answer these questions gives me enormous satisfaction. I
also very much enjoy engaging with the participants in my studies – their
support of my research is very humbling.
I also feel incredibly privileged to be working in a
Research Institute that is the foremost stroke research centre in Australia. I
am surrounded by amazing researchers and scientists that are passionate about
finding ways of helping people with neurological and mental health conditions –
every day is inspiring.
4. What have been the lows?
Navigating the challenges of being in research is a
persistent battle. It has never been tougher to win grants to support your
research, particularly for early career researchers. Knowing that your
livelihood is dependent on that next grant is something I find very stressful.
I also struggle to deal with rejections from scientific
publishers and near-misses from grant funders. The feeling of failure and not
being good enough is pervasive in this line of work and can at times be
overwhelming.
5. How do you balance work life with the needs of home life?
With difficulty actually! Firstly, I should say that I have
tremendous support from my wife to do what I do, but I think, like many, I find
this to be one of the most challenging aspects of research. I think just being
mindful of trying to maintain a balance is important – and then putting in
place some strategies to keep work and home life separate works reasonably well
for me. I try to maintain pretty rigid routines with what I dedicate my time to
and when, and I exercise every day which I find is super important for my
physical and mental health. Weekends are primarily time for me and my family, and
I make sure I take at least one-week away from work a couple of times a year,
not only for me to refresh and recharge, but also to dedicate time to my marriage
and fur-babies.
6. Who are your most important mentors and how did you find
them?
I have been very fortunate to be mentored by a number of
people, though mainly in informal arrangements, whereby I have come to them, as
leaders in research I am interested in, for guidance. It is really only in
hindsight that I consider people like Professors Frank Mastaglia, Gary
Thickbroom and Dylan Edwards to have been fantastic mentors. Since moving to
The Florey Institute, I have been incredibly fortunate to be supervised by
Professor Julie Bernhardt, who I consider to be a mentor as much as my
supervisor. Julie has been tremendously influential of me – her care, guidance
and support drives me every single day to give the very best of myself to my
work. Via the Florey Institute’s formal mentoring program, I have also been
lucky to be mentored by Dr Lachlan Thompson more recently, which I am finding
to be very helpful also.
7. What are your most important collaborations and how have
you built them?
Building on the hard work and leadership of people like
Professor Bernhardt, I have been privileged to access an extensive network of
collaborators, in particular within the Centre of Research Excellence in Stroke
Rehabilitation and Brain Recovery. I also collaborate with a number of other
groups, including a group based in New York, USA, focussing on telemedicine and
virtual rehabilitation, and a group researching exercise training for people
with Parkinson’s disease at Deakin University. I believe that having a strong
reputation for excellence and integrity in your research, being willing to work
with others and open to opportunities, and being generous in the collaboration
are some of the more important ingredients for initiating and establishing
healthy collaborations.
