Industrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC210100019
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,583,816.00
Summary
ARC Training Centre for Optimal Ageing. The ARC Training Centre for Optimal Ageing aims to address issues identified by older adults as essential for quality of life. With our industry partners, we aim to train the next generation of researchers to understand, detect and improve psychosocial factors that support mental activity, physical health and social connectedness, and embrace advances in artificial intelligence, digital-enriched environments and adaptive workplaces to deliver effective dig ....ARC Training Centre for Optimal Ageing. The ARC Training Centre for Optimal Ageing aims to address issues identified by older adults as essential for quality of life. With our industry partners, we aim to train the next generation of researchers to understand, detect and improve psychosocial factors that support mental activity, physical health and social connectedness, and embrace advances in artificial intelligence, digital-enriched environments and adaptive workplaces to deliver effective digital solutions. By developing new capacity and capability to drive the digital transformation of industries supporting our ageing population, our Centre seeks to deliver economic and social benefits that enable Australians to live enriched, healthy and independent lives as they age.Read moreRead less
Intergenerational Prediction of Social and Early Emotional Development. This project aims to investigate multi-generational influences on child psychosocial development. It plans to take advantage of a not-to-be-repeated opportunity to follow offspring born to one of Australia’s oldest longitudinal studies of social and emotional development. The Australian Temperament Project has followed around 2000 parents and offspring across 30 years from birth in 1983. Third-generation babies have been fol ....Intergenerational Prediction of Social and Early Emotional Development. This project aims to investigate multi-generational influences on child psychosocial development. It plans to take advantage of a not-to-be-repeated opportunity to follow offspring born to one of Australia’s oldest longitudinal studies of social and emotional development. The Australian Temperament Project has followed around 2000 parents and offspring across 30 years from birth in 1983. Third-generation babies have been followed across the peak period of first births to females. This project plans to continue recruitment across the peak period of first births for males in 2016–18. This would create one of the most extensive and well-powered three-generation resources worldwide, yielding unique data on intergenerational pathways through mother and father lines. It expects to inform targeting of interventions and psychosocial resources to promote wellbeing within and across generations.Read moreRead less
Preconception predictors of early childhood social and emotional development: a 30-year longitudinal study of grandparents, parents and children. There is increasing recognition of the importance of preconception pathways in shaping the family environments that parents provide for their children. This project will advance understandings of preconception pathways to healthy early child development, by recruiting offspring born to a 30-year longitudinal study: The Australian Temperament Study.
Dissecting the Brain Circuitry Shaping Fear Regulation Across Development. Adolescence is an important time when individuals learn to manage stress-related emotions like fear. This project aims to understand how maturational changes in the prefrontal cortex of the brain hinder adolescents when learning to reduce reactivity to threats. It aims to do so by dissecting the brain circuitry shaping learning, memory, and emotional regulation across pre-adolescence, adolescence, and adulthood. The proje ....Dissecting the Brain Circuitry Shaping Fear Regulation Across Development. Adolescence is an important time when individuals learn to manage stress-related emotions like fear. This project aims to understand how maturational changes in the prefrontal cortex of the brain hinder adolescents when learning to reduce reactivity to threats. It aims to do so by dissecting the brain circuitry shaping learning, memory, and emotional regulation across pre-adolescence, adolescence, and adulthood. The project expects to generate new knowledge about why developmental changes in the brain are necessary for mature forms of learning and memory. The expected outcomes of this project include a significantly richer knowledge of the developing brain, which will ultimately inform approaches for improving emotion regulation in youth.Read moreRead less
Babera dariadya yewing (Echoes of a flawed truth): investigating theory and practice on the interplay between bullying and racism. The negative impact of bullying and racism is being increasingly documented for Aboriginal youth, yet little attempt has been made to understand the differential impact of these stressors on the wellbeing and identity of Aboriginal Australian youth. This project will seek to address this issue, to guide future action-based research.
Investigating the role of Zona Incerta RXFP3+ cells in learning and memory. Learning and memory are fundamental to human and animal behaviour. We identified a specific population of cells in the zona incerta of the brain, where activation inhibits expression of memory, and facilitates the acquisition of new learning. Aside from our observations, nothing is currently known about the anatomy and function of these cells. This project aims to map how they connect to the rest of the brain, to observe ....Investigating the role of Zona Incerta RXFP3+ cells in learning and memory. Learning and memory are fundamental to human and animal behaviour. We identified a specific population of cells in the zona incerta of the brain, where activation inhibits expression of memory, and facilitates the acquisition of new learning. Aside from our observations, nothing is currently known about the anatomy and function of these cells. This project aims to map how they connect to the rest of the brain, to observe how these connections are recruited during learning and memory, and then to test their function experimentally. The outcomes will extend the known neural circuitry that controls learning by defining how and where these unexplored pathways fit within it; thus advancing knowledge regarding neural regulation of behaviour.
Read moreRead less
Hunger flexibly modifies hypothalamic neural circuits responding to threat. Animal and human behaviour frequently involves a choice between actions or goals with conflicting positive and negative outcomes. However, the appropriate action or goal in conflicting situations often depends on physiological pressures like hunger, stress and mating opportunities. For example, the need for resources within an environment, such as food, drives approach behaviour, whereas threats to survival, such as pred ....Hunger flexibly modifies hypothalamic neural circuits responding to threat. Animal and human behaviour frequently involves a choice between actions or goals with conflicting positive and negative outcomes. However, the appropriate action or goal in conflicting situations often depends on physiological pressures like hunger, stress and mating opportunities. For example, the need for resources within an environment, such as food, drives approach behaviour, whereas threats to survival, such as predator cues, enhance avoidance behaviour. This project will uncover the neural circuitry and endocrine mechanisms through which hunger influences hypothalamic threat-detecting circuits that suppress food intake. These studies provide a new hypothalamic model to understand risk/reward decision in the brain.Read moreRead less
Co-evolution of Cooperation, Mindreading, and Morality. The project aims to investigate the evolutionary and cultural–historical underpinnings of human cooperation. Human cooperation is critical to meet contemporary challenges to humanity such as climate change and humanitarian emergencies. Yet, when cooperation incurs some cost to benefit others, how can cooperation emerge? The project’s main contention is that human cooperation co-evolved with the human capacities to read each other’s minds an ....Co-evolution of Cooperation, Mindreading, and Morality. The project aims to investigate the evolutionary and cultural–historical underpinnings of human cooperation. Human cooperation is critical to meet contemporary challenges to humanity such as climate change and humanitarian emergencies. Yet, when cooperation incurs some cost to benefit others, how can cooperation emerge? The project’s main contention is that human cooperation co-evolved with the human capacities to read each other’s minds and to monitor and sanction each other’s deeds in the social context of pursuing a collective goal for a greater good. The project plans to tests the theoretical integrity of this contention through computer simulations and its empirical validity through laboratory experiments and cross-cultural studies.Read moreRead less
Understanding secrecy in everyday life. This project aims to undertake the first systematic investigation of secrecy in everyday life. Secrecy is often vital in professional and personal life, but current scientific understanding of the costs and processes of secrecy is limited. This project proposes using innovative methodologies to estimate the psychological costs of secrecy and test an intervention to reduce these costs. Expected outcomes include developing theory, advancing methodology, and ....Understanding secrecy in everyday life. This project aims to undertake the first systematic investigation of secrecy in everyday life. Secrecy is often vital in professional and personal life, but current scientific understanding of the costs and processes of secrecy is limited. This project proposes using innovative methodologies to estimate the psychological costs of secrecy and test an intervention to reduce these costs. Expected outcomes include developing theory, advancing methodology, and building research capacity in supporting exceptional scholars. Significant benefits include educating community members about how to combat the harmful effects of secrecy.Read moreRead less
How inequalities affect attitudes and behaviours concerning sex and gender. This project addresses how economic inequalities—between and within the sexes—shape behaviour, gender sentiment, and violence both online and ‘in real life’. The research brings evolutionary understandings of sexual marketplaces together with the psychology of social behaviour, to shed new light on the origins of sexual conflict and harmful gender ideologies. This project integrates within-individual variation, careful e ....How inequalities affect attitudes and behaviours concerning sex and gender. This project addresses how economic inequalities—between and within the sexes—shape behaviour, gender sentiment, and violence both online and ‘in real life’. The research brings evolutionary understandings of sexual marketplaces together with the psychology of social behaviour, to shed new light on the origins of sexual conflict and harmful gender ideologies. This project integrates within-individual variation, careful experimental dissection of the sources of inequality, and the study of large-scale (among cities, among countries) patterns of behaviour on social media. A fuller understanding of how and why inequalities affect behaviour presents opportunities for improved social policy and responses to gendered violence and cyberhate.Read moreRead less