Professor Topun Austin

I am a Consultant Neonatologist in Cambridge, and Honorary Professor of Neurophotonics at University College London. I am also the Director of the Evelyn Perinatal Imaging Centre (EPIC), based at the Rosie Hospital, Cambridge. My main research interests are in brain development and injury in the newborn, using novel monitoring and imaging technologies and their translation into routine clinical care as well as ways of assessing early infant behaviour and functional brain connectivity. I work closely with Professor David Rowitch (Head of Paediatrics, Cambridge University) in the development of the Cambridge NeuroNICU, developing a brain-orientated model of care for newborn infants in intensive care.

I am the co-director of neoLAB, which is a collaborative group between EPIC and Biomedical Optics Laboratory at UCL (Professor Jem Hebden, Assoc. Prof. Rob Cooper). The group has been involved in developing state-of-the-art optical imaging systems to study functional activity in the developing brain. I am currently involved in a number of projects using optical and EEG systems to study: 1) the role of sleep and functional connectivity in the developing brain, 2) neural synchrony between mother and babies in association with affectionate touch, 3) functional imaging of motor activity in infants at risk of cerebral palsy, 4) evaluating the optimal way to detect seizures in the newborn.

I have a number of productive collaborations with the Departments of Psychology (Prof. Mark Johnson, Dr. Sarah-Lloyd Fox), Psychiatry (Prof. Sir Simon Baron-Cohen) and Clinical Neurosciences (Prof. Marek Czosnyka, Dr. Peter Smielewski) at the University of Cambridge and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (Assoc. Prof. Vicky Leong).