Heather Whalley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Heather Whalley
|
|
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience Neuroimaging |
| Institutions | University of Edinburgh |
| Thesis | Functional neuroimaging in subjects at high genetic risk of schizophrenia (2005) |
| Doctoral advisor | Eve Johnstone |
Heather Clare Whalley is a Scottish scientist. She is a Professor of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Whalley studies the brain using special scanning techniques called neuroimaging. This helps her understand how major mental health conditions develop. She looks at how genes and other factors affect the brain.
Education and Early Research
Heather Whalley earned her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. For her PhD, she studied brain scans of adolescents. These young people had a higher chance of developing mental health conditions. This was because these conditions ran in their families.
Since then, she has received several important awards. These include a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship. She also received a John, Margaret, Alfred and Stewart Sim Research Fellowship. This was from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
Brain Research and Discoveries
Professor Whalley leads a research group at the University of Edinburgh. This group studies the brain and mental health. They work with other scientists around the world. Their goal is to understand how different things affect the brain. This includes our genes and the environment around us.
They look at how these factors change the brain's structure and how it works. They use large amounts of brain data to do this. Their research helps explain how brain changes can affect how people behave. For example, they study conditions like depression and bipolar disorder. They also look at how brain activity relates to learning and income.
