Outside of work I love going on adventures with my wife and two young children. I also like to take my mind off science by doing projects around the house. I’ve been landscaping my front yard and back yards recently.

It was based on a number of reasons rather than a single reason. I have worked with several people over the years who had multiple sclerosis (MS), or who had family with MS, so I’ve been able to see the impact that MS-related fatigue has on people. Given that my lab has a long history of studying mechanisms of muscle activation, I felt like it was a research field that I could make a genuine contribution to.

Although it’s not directly related to my own field, I think that linking the Epstein-Barr virus to MS was a very exciting development. There are so many central nervous system (CNS) diseases where it is difficult to pinpoint an origin for the disease. Discoveries like this one could open up the door to developing preventative strategies to reduce the incidence of MS in the future.

We are extremely grateful to MS Australia for supporting two of our projects in the Neural Control of Movement laboratory at Griffith University. Our Project Grant will determine mechanisms that contribute to muscle weakness in people with MS. This will be a multi-disciplinary approach, where we will use neuroimaging techniques to study the integrity of motor pathways in the brain and spinal cord, as well as advanced neurophysiological techniques to examine how motor cells in the MS spinal cord discharge to activate muscles during physical activity. Our Incubator Grant will explore if using a simple electrical muscle stimulator can improve muscle weakness in people with MS. Our hypothesis is that muscle stimulation may not necessarily improve motor function by acting directly on muscle but may instead improve muscle activity by stimulating sensory nerves that travel into the CNS to provide feedback to neural pathways that activate muscles.

Our work involves several important end users. In particular, neurologists are critical for the diagnosis and medical treatment of people with MS. So, we will work closely with neurologists and medical personnel in the local community to understand how they assess and treat muscle weakness and fatigue in MS patients. We will then determine if our findings can be used to modify existing recommendations for treating MS patients with motor symptoms.

There is always a new challenge and a new research question to answer. Scientists rarely have time to get bored with their job because each week is different to the last. I think that one of the greatest challenges that exists in Australia is maintaining support for ‘discovery’ research. Not all projects have an immediate outcome for society but instead take years to fully develop. It’s important to keep supporting discovery research because it will eventually provide a big impact on our healthcare system.