Nature, Nurture and Neuroscience: The Future of Brain Health

Talks on Tuesdays: Real lectures in your favourite venues. 45-min + Q&A with Prof. Anthony Hannan Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner. This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out.Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about. Event Schedule: At Brick Lane guest can arrive anytime from 5pm to order food or have pre-lecture drinks and mingle. 7pm Lecuture Starts 7.45pm Q&A 8pm Talk Concludes 8.30pm Event Closes. *Please arrive close to 6.30pm A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go. Your Topic: Nature, Nurture and Neuroscience: The Future of Brain Health How do genetic and environment factors work together to sculpt the development and function of our brains? This talk explores how ‘nature and nurture’, genes and environment, combine to affect brain health, as well as risk for, and resilience to, brain disorders. Professor of Neuroscience, Anthony Hannan has spent more than half his life trying to better understand the most complex object in the known universe … the human brain. Some brain disorders have become more common in recent decades, and generations. This cannot be due to genetics, as our genomes have been sculpted slowly by evolution, over many hundreds, and thousands, of years. Any human disorder that becomes more common within decades, or a few generations, must be due to changing environmental exposures, experiences or lifestyles. Professor Hannan will explain how we travel along ‘brain trajectories’ our whole lives, and how we might influence environmental and lifestyle factors to enhance our brain health, and thus our lives. Your Speaker: Professor Anthony Hannan is Head of the Epigenetics and Neural Plasticity Group at The Florey, where he leads research uncovering how genes and environment interact to shape brain function and mental health. His work spans neurodegeneration, psychiatric disorders, the microbiota–gut–brain axis, and experience‑dependent plasticity, with pioneering discoveries showing how environmental enrichment can modify disease trajectories. A globally recognised neuroscientist, he also serves in leadership roles across the Australian Brain Alliance and the International Brain Initiative.