RMJ Deacon
Research Areas
Medical Sciences Division Themes
- Neuroscience
- Behavioural Science
- Cell and Molecular Biology
- Genetics and Genomics
- Imaging
- Immunology
- Drug Discovery
- Ion Channels and Transporters
Neuroscience Sub-Themes
- Genes and Developmental Neuroscience
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
- Systems, Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience
- Functional Brain Imaging
- Clinical Neuroscience
- Human Psychology, Mental Health and Psychiatry
Neuroscience Keywords
- Affective Neuroscience
- Ageing
- Aggregation
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Amnesia
- Amygdala
- Amyloid
- Anxiety
- Anxiety Disorders
- Associative Learning
- Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Autism
- Autoimmune Diseases
- Behaviour
- Behavioural Phenotype
- Brain
- Brain Imaging
- Brain Injury
- Cognition
- Cognitive
- Cognitive Flexibility
- Cognitive Impairment
- Cortex
- Decision-Making
- Dementia
- Depression
- Depressive Disorders
- Dyslexia
- Emotion
- Frontal Lobe
- Genetic Disorders
- Hearing and Balance Deficits
- Hippocampus
- Huntington's Disease
- Ion Channels
- Language Disorders
- Language
- Learning
- Learning and Memory
- Learning Disabilities
- Memory
- Methods
- Modelling
- Motor Control
- Motor Learning
- Mouse
- Movement Disorders
- Neocortex
- Neurodegeneration
- Neuropathology
- Neuropsychology
- Neuroscience
- Orbitofrontal Cortex
- Parkinson's Disease
- Pharmacology
- Prefrontal Cortex
- Prefrontal
- Prion Diseases
- Psychopharmacology
- Recognition
- Sleep Disorders
- Tau
- Working Memory
Techniques and Equipment
Collaborators
- Angela Vincent, Institute of Molecular Medicine
- Simon Fisher, WTCHG
- RichardWade-Martins, WTCHG
- Bernard Morley, Imperial College, London
- Andreas Goebel, University College, London
- Daniel Anthony, Pharmacology
- Marina Pleskacheva, Moscow State University
- Colm Cunningham, Trinity College, Dublin
| Department |
Department of Experimental Psychology
Department of Pharmacology Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics |
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My chief interest is in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases. In particular I am interested in the role of the hippocampus and associated cortex in Alzheimer's disease (AD). I have developed an new view of hippocampal function - that this structure plays a vital role in species-typical behaviours in rodents, notably the mouse, which is the animal of choice for molecular biologistsand geneticists. These species-typical behaviours are analogous to the "activities of daily living" deterioration of which is among the first signs of AD. Thus we should be able to detect potential treatments for AD by studying their effects on natural, spontaneous mouse behaviour. Moreover, these ethologically based tests are extremely "mouse friendly" in that the mice seem to enjoy doing them and testing enriches their lives. Scientifically, they benefit from extreme sensitivity, simplicity and cheapness - no expensive equipment is needed to measure them. Many could be used to great advantage by, for example, pharmaceutical companies as a primary screen for AD treatments. Positive treatments could then be selected for the more time-consuming cognitive secondary and tertiary screens.
I am also involved in developing new and better cognitive and motor tests, especially for mice. Rats used to be the animals of choice for behavioural research, mice being regarded as too timid and of low intelligence. The molecular revolution and the charting of the human and mouse genome have, however, made the mouse essential to exploring how molecular level structure translates into functionality, in this case behaviour. and putting this new knowledge to practical and clinical use.
Sources of Funding
- Wellcome Trust
Biography
My PhD set the theme for my life's work; using rats and mice in a broad battery of tests to fully characterise a treatment, brain lesion or drug - in this case the anti-viral drug amantadine which had recently been shown to ameliorate Parkinson's disease. There were suggestions that it could improve learning and memory, but after more than thirty different experiments I showed that it was simply making the animals more emotional, and this had created a "false positive" in the earlier tests which used aversive motivation.
After a first post-doc appointment studying morphine, pain and emotionality, and learning stereotaxic techniques, I spent ten years in the pharmaceutical industry developing new compounds for anxiety and cognitive disorders. Subsequently I came to Oxford in 1991 for a series of short term contracts. To my surprise these continued and I also became interested in teaching, both to MSc groups and graduate and undergraduate student projects. I have increasingly played an advisory role (on rodent behaviour) to most of the biomedical departments of Oxford University. Many people have become interested in behaviour as a result of contacting me, and I have helped to broaden several lines of research into interdisciplinary investigations. As an example, a model of prion disease in mice used to manifest as clinical signs about 22 weeks after injection of scapie, with death following shortly afterwards. Using behavioural techniques, the most sensitive of which, burrowing, I personally developed, we can show which animals have the disease as early as 12 weeks post-injection. Currently, my advisory role extends far beyond Oxford.
Selected Publications
- Deacon Robert MJ (2006) Burrowing in rodents: a sensitive method for detecting behavioral dysfunction. Nat Protoc, 1(1):118-21.
- Deacon Robert MJ (2006) Housing, husbandry and handling of rodents for behavioral experiments. Nat Protoc, 1(2):936-46.
- Deacon Robert MJ and Rawlins J NP (2006) T-maze alternation in the rodent. Nat Protoc, 1(1):7-12.
- Deacon Robert MJ and Rawlins J NP (2005) Hippocampal lesions, species-typical behaviours and anxiety in mice. Behav Brain Res, 156(2):241-9.
- Deacon Robert MJ, Bannerman David M, Kirby Brian P, Croucher Adam, and Rawlins J NP (2002) Effects of cytotoxic hippocampal lesions in mice on a cognitive test battery. Behav Brain Res, 133(1):57-68.
- Deacon R M, Bannerman D M, and Rawlins N P (2001) Conditional discriminations based on external and internal cues in rats with cytotoxic hippocampal lesions. Behav Neurosci, 115(1):43-57.
- Deacon R M, Raley J M, Perry V H, and Rawlins J N (2001) Burrowing into prion disease. Neuroreport, 12(9):2053-7.
- Guenther K, Deacon R M, Perry V H, and Rawlins J N (2001) Early behavioural changes in scrapie-affected mice and the influence of dapsone. Eur J Neurosci, 14(2):401-9.
- van Dellen A, Blakemore C, Deacon R, York D, and Hannan A J (2000) Delaying the onset of Huntington's in mice. Nature, 404(6779):721-2.
