Neuroscience Research Australia, Australia
Professor Simon Gandevia (FAA FAHMS FRACP FTPS DSc MD PhD) is a founder of Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney and an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow/Investigator. He studied medicine at the University of New South Wales and subsequently conducted research in clinical neurophysiology at the Prince Henry Hospital.
In 1992, he established with colleagues the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, now Neuroscience Research Australia. His research on volunteers and patients focuses on areas such as: proprioceptive mechanisms, neural control of breathing, motor control and muscle fatigue, the passive behaviour of muscles, and spinal cord physiology. Many studies involve patients with a range of disorders or diseases. He is the only person to have published more than a hundred papers in the Journal of Physiology.
He is committed to improving research quality having published a Quality Output Checklist and Content Assessment (QuOCCA) and set up Retractions Australia (https://retractions.au/).
He has had longstanding editorial roles with the Journal of Physiology and Journal of Applied Physiology. He headed a new NHMRC program in ‘Motor Impairment’ and started a new initiative in spinal cord injury. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1998 and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2016.
ABSTRACT:
Motor Impairment: Some messages
This conference was founded in 2018 on the belief that impairment of motor function occurs across multiple diseases and domains such as ageing. It is broadly defined and likely very common. In the quest to understand and ameliorate motor impairments the field needs quality research rather than mere quantity. I will cover several issues. First, in chronic spinal cord injury, a serious motor impairment, the view from small poorly controlled studies suggests that transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation would enhance the ability of locomotor training to improve walking. Not so according to robust results from our randomised, sham-controlled, triple-blinded, fully-powered trial (Bye et al, 2025). Second, it is often tempting to assume that a correlation signifies a cause. This is exemplified by the apparent link between results of proprioception tests and tests of practical function in patient groups. Our review of this link in stroke, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease shows otherwise (Robertson et al, 2025). This review also exposes our new view about low- and high-level proprioception (Heroux et al, 2022, 2025). Finally, there are strategies to improve the reliability of our clinical research (e.g. Ingram et al, 2025). Ultimately, we must maximise the benefits of what we do and reduce research ‘waste’.