Driven to drink

26 March 2009

Among the new projects funded through our Neuroscience and Mental Health stream is a study into the way heavy drinkers think about alcohol. A team led by Dr Matt Field from the University of Liverpool will use questionnaires and computer tasks to study whether the craving for alcohol and the desire to stop drinking can be separated. They hope to help explain why alcoholics struggle to stop drinking, which could have implications for the management of alcohol-related problems.

Dr Andrew Glennerster from the University of Reading and Professor Andrew Parker from the University of Oxford will use virtual reality to investigate how the brain generates a stable visual representation of the world even though our eyes are continually moving. The research should improve our understanding of how the brain normally perceives size, distance and visual direction.