Dr Wei Wen is a biomedical engineer and neuroscientist at UNSW Sydney, where he leads the NeuroImaging Lab (NiL) at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA). Dr Wen bridges engineering and neuroscience to advance our understanding of the ageing brain. He earned his PhD in Engineering from the University of Sydney and applies this multidisciplinary background to neuroimaging research focused on brain ageing and dementia.

As lead of CHeBA’s Neuroimaging Group, Dr Wen oversees a team of postdoctoral fellows and students, fostering collaborations that span clinical medicine, computer science, and biostatistics. The NeuroImaging Lab also supports national research platforms such as Dementias Platform Australia, providing expertise in imaging data management.

Research Focus and Expertise

Dr Wen’s research centres on computational neuroanatomy – developing comprehensive structural and functional models of the human brain. A core theme of his work is understanding how the brain changes with age and disease. His studies span normal ageing, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia, with the aim of identifying imaging biomarkers and risk factors across this spectrum.

Dr Wen specialises in advanced neuroimaging techniques, particularly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). His expertise includes high-resolution structural MRI and modalities such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for mapping white matter connectivity, functional MRI for brain activity, and FLAIR and SWI for detecting cerebrovascular lesions. Dr Wen also integrates positron emission tomography (PET) to examine brain metabolism, making his approach multi-modal.

Recognising that brain health is influenced by multiple factors, Dr Wen often combines imaging with clinical, genetic, and lifestyle data – a multidisciplinary strategy that reflects his engineering background and collaborative research ethos. This broad skill set enables him to develop novel quantitative methods and tools for brain imaging, while ensuring his research remains relevant to both academic and public health audiences.

Key Contributions and Projects

Dr Wen’s contributions to brain ageing research and neuroimaging methodology includes mapping and modelling age-related white matter hyperintensities – small lesions on MRI linked to cerebrovascular disease – and developing algorithms to analyse brain structure morphology for improved detection of subtle atrophy associated with ageing and neurodegeneration.

Dr Wen’s team has also made the use of artificial intelligence in neuroimaging, including the development of deep learning models for the automated detection of enlarged perivascular spaces (PVS) – an emerging MRI marker of small vessel disease and neurodegenerative diseases. To date, Dr Wen’s lab has processed tens of thousands of brain MRI scans from global study cohorts, using high-performance computing infrastructure to manage large-scale neuroimaging datasets. These efforts contribute to building normative brain ageing models – essentially reference maps of healthy brain ageing – against which pathological changes can be identified.

Dr Wen plays a key role in several large-scale and longitudinal studies at CHeBA, including the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study, the Older Australian Twins Study, and the Sydney Centenarian Study, where he leads neuroimaging components such as MRI protocol development and image analysis. Internationally, he is a contributor to the ENIGMA Consortium – a global collaboration that combines brain imaging and genetics data. Through ENIGMA, Dr Wen has co-authored high-impact studies, including publications in Nature and Science, which have uncovered genetic influences on brain structure. Dr Wen has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles in neuroimaging and brain ageing.

Collaboration and Impact

Dr Wen places strong emphasis on collaboration and translational impact. He works closely with clinicians, geriatric psychiatrists, neurologists, and epidemiologists to ensure imaging research contributes meaningfully to improved understanding and care of the ageing population. He also collaborates with engineers and computer scientists to develop cutting-edge image analysis methods.

The NeuroImaging Lab he leads is inherently multidisciplinary, bringing together data analysts, software engineers, and neuroscientists to tackle shared research questions. Dr Wen has successfully secured competitive research funding, serving as Chief Investigator on major grants, including an ARC Discovery Project and multiple NHMRC projects. These grants support initiatives such as building MRI-based indices of cerebrovascular disease and developing lesion detection algorithms.

Dr. Wen supervises PhD, Masters, and Honours students, providing them with hands-on experience in neuroimaging analysis and interpretation.

Ultimately, Dr Wen’s work seeks to enable earlier diagnosis and better prevention of dementia through the development of neuroimaging tools and exploring clinical questions that are both scientifically robust and clinically meaningful.

Broad Research Areas:
Neurosciences, Brain Ageing, NeuroImaging / Neuro-radiology, Medical Informatics, Pattern Recognition & Deep learning

Qualifications:
Ph.D. (Engineering, Sydney University)

Specific Research Keywords:
Computational neuroanatomy, Brain Anatomy, MRI, Mathematical Modelling, Medical Imaging

Meet Our Researcher
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