Prof. Peter Brown

Peter Brown is an emeritus Professor of Experimental Neurology in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, and the founding Director of the MRC Brain Network Dynamics Unit at the University of Oxford.

Peter graduated in Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He was appointed a Professor of Neurology at University College London in 2004, and in 2006, he became Head of the Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders at the Institute of Neurology, University College London. He moved to the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford as Professor of Experimental Neurology in 2010, and in 2015, became the first Director of the MRC BNDU. He retired in 2021.

Peter began his research in disorders of movement in the early 1990s, when he was instrumental in classifying and determining the underlying pathophysiology of myoclonus, and the stiff person and startle syndromes. Subsequently, Peter developed an interest in the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease, establishing that synchronised oscillations amongst nerve cells in the basal ganglia of the brains of people with Parkinson’s are linked to symptoms of stiffness and slowness, and successfully pioneering therapeutic interventions that leverage this phenomenon.