Research leaders

Principal Research Fellow

Vanessa Cropley is a Principal Research Fellow at Orygen and the Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne and Head of the Neurobiology and Neurodevelopment group at Orygen.

She is interested in understanding the biopsychosocial influences of youth mental health, with a focus on psychosis. Using the developmental framework, Vanessa seeks to understand how typical and atypical brain development interacts with biological and environmental factors to affect the emergence of mental illness.

Current research interests include:

• Investigating immune proteins involved in synaptic pruning to determine if they are disrupted in individuals with psychosis and how this affects neurodevelopmental trajectories.
• Exploring how trauma may influence neurodevelopment, increasing the risk of developing psychosis.
• Examining sleep and circadian factors in individuals with psychosis and how normative changes in these factors shape adolescent brain maturation.
• Studying how factors like light exposure influence brain and body aging in the general population and those with diagnosed mental health conditions.