Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
I am a neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist based at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia. I am currently appointed as an Associate Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience, and lead the Monash Cognitive Neurology Laboratory. I consult at cognitive clinics at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and Alfred Health.
I completed both my undergraduate research training (BMedSc) and medical training (MB,BS) with Honours at Monash University in 2002. I then embarked on my doctoral research with Jason Mattingley at the University of Melbourne, and in collaboration with Nancy Kanwisher at MIT. After being awarded my PhD in 2007, I returned to speciality training in Neurology via St. Vincent's Hospital and The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, and was admitted to Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) as a consultant neurologist in 2013. That year, I was awarded an NH&MRC Neil Hamilton Fairley Early Career Fellowship, which I took to Oxford to work with Masud Husain. I returned to Australia in 2015 to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders in Sydney, before establishing my lab at Monash.
Research Interests
Cognitive impairments affect individuals across a broad range of neurological disease. The Cognitive Neurology Laboratory at Monash University seeks to understand the neurobiology of learning, memory and decision-making in healthy individuals, and how these processes are impacted by neurological illness.
Our research bridges the domains of basic cognitive neuroscience and clinical cognitive neurology, with the ultimate goal of developing new paradigms that may be translated into the clinical setting to guide the diagnosis and management of cognitive symptoms.
To accomplish this, we combine insights from psychology, economics and neuroscience, and apply cross-disciplinary methodologies including psychophysics, computational modelling, electroencephalography, structural and functional brain imaging, pharmacological intervention, and brain lesion studies.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Neuroscience, PhD, University of Melbourne
Award Date: 20 Dec 2007
Medicine, BMedSc (Hons), Monash University
Award Date: 5 Dec 2002
Medicine, MBBS (Hons), Monash University
Award Date: 5 Dec 2002
External positions
Board Director & Chair, Research ('Cure') Committee, Cure for MND Foundation Inc
2018 → …
Senior Staff Specialist, Alfred Hospital
2017 → …
Senior Staff Specialist, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
2016 → …
Research area keywords
- Decision-making
- Motivation
- Reward
- Dopamine
- Parkinson's disease
- Effort
- Fatigue
- Perception
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Leveraging a large scale randomized clinical trial to determine whether statins can prevent Alzheimer’s Disease neuropathology and dementia
Ryan, J. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Zoungas, S. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Law, M. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Chong, T. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & Harding, I. (Chief Investigator (CI))
1/06/25 → 31/05/27
Project: Research
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The neurobiology of curiosity
Chong, T. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
1/01/23 → 31/12/26
Project: Research
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Neuropharmacology of decision-making: causal brain network modelling across species
Bellgrove, M. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Thiele, A. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Chong, T. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Coxon, J. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Deco, G. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Lyra Gollo, G. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Arnatkeviciute, A. (Chief Investigator (CI)), O’Connell, R. G. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Fornito, A. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Breakspear, M. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Davey, C. (Associate Investigator (AI)) & Razi, A. (Associate Investigator (AI))
NHMRC - National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia)
1/01/22 → 31/12/26
Project: Research
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Clinical trial to determine the effects of statins on cognition: STAREE-Mind
Ryan, J. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Zoungas, S. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Law, M. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Anderson, C. S. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Chong, T. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Heritier, S. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Harding, I. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Naismith, S. L. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Liew, D. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & O'Sullivan, M. J. (Chief Investigator (CI))
1/07/21 → 30/06/26
Project: Research
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Reducing uncertainty in perceptual decision making by training awareness of neurocognitive states
Rangelov, D. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Mattingley, J. (Associate Investigator (AI)), McAnally, K. I. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Bellgrove, M. (Associate Investigator (AI)), Chong, T. (Associate Investigator (AI)) & Bode, S. (Associate Investigator (AI))
28/07/20 → …
Project: Research
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Aspirin and healthy lifespan in older people: main outcome of the ASPREE-XT observational study
Shah, R. C., Ryan, J. L., Webb, K. L., Wolfe, R., Chan, A., Chong, T. T. J., Ernst, M. E., Espinoza, S., Flynn, O., Lee, S. Y., McNeil, J. J., Nelson, M. R., Orchard, S. G., Reid, C. M., Sheets, K. M., Stocks, N. P., Weerasinghe, N., Wilson, M. E., Woods, R. L. & Murray, A., Sept 2025, In: The Lancet Healthy Longevity. 6, 9, 9 p., 100764.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access1 Citation (Scopus) -
Association of Year-to-Year Lipid Variability With Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia in Community-Dwelling Older Adults
Zhou, Z., Moran, C., Murray, A. M., Zoungas, S., Magnussen, C., Chong, T. T. J., Shah, R. C., Sheets, K. M., Nelson, M., Zhu, C., Tonkin, A. M., Talic, S., Ernst, M. E., Orchard, S. G., Mcneil, J. J., Wolfe, R., Woods, R. L., Neumann, J. T., Qiu, P. & Ryan, J., 29 Jan 2025, In: Neurology. 104, 4, 16 p., e210247.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access6 Citations (Scopus) -
Associations of abdominal adiposity, lean body mass, and fat body mass with dementia and cognitive change in older age
Wu, Z., Owen, A., Woods, R. L., Zhou, Z., Chong, T. T. J., Orchard, S. G., Shah, R. C., Sheets, K. M., Murray, A. M. & Ryan, J. (Leading Author), 1 Apr 2025, In: Alzheimer's and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring. 17, 2, 10 p., e70135.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access -
Beyond a syndrome: a mechanism for depression in Parkinson's disease
Le Heron, C. & Chong, T. T. J., 1 Jun 2025, In: Brain. 148, 6, p. 1859-1861 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment / Debate › Other › peer-review
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Cardiometabolic Trajectories Preceding Dementia in Community-Dwelling Older Individuals
Wu, Z., Cribb, L. G., Wolfe, R., Shah, R. C., Orchard, S. G., Owen, A. J., Woods, R. L., Vishwanath, S., Chong, T. T. J., Sheets, K. M., Murray, A. M. & Ryan, J. L., 7 Feb 2025, In: JAMA Network Open. 8, 2, 14 p., e2458591.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access5 Citations (Scopus)
Activities
- 25 Non-HDR Supervisions
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Ben Plaikaew (Psychology Honours)
Chong, T. (Supervisor)
2025 → …Activity: Other Teaching Engagements and non-HDR Supervisions › Non-HDR Supervisions
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Jack Phillips (Psychology Honours)
Chong, T. (Supervisor)
2025 → …Activity: Other Teaching Engagements and non-HDR Supervisions › Non-HDR Supervisions
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Maanasa Raja (Psychology Honours)
Chong, T. (Supervisor)
2024 → …Activity: Other Teaching Engagements and non-HDR Supervisions › Non-HDR Supervisions
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Lema Safi (Psychology Honours)
Chong, T. (Supervisor)
2024Activity: Other Teaching Engagements and non-HDR Supervisions › Non-HDR Supervisions
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Leon Tay (Psychology Honours)
Chong, T. (Supervisor)
2024 → …Activity: Other Teaching Engagements and non-HDR Supervisions › Non-HDR Supervisions