Tim Viney

Research Vision

I investigate neural circuit mechanisms underlying spatial orientation and memory, and how selective vulnerability within these circuits contributes to the progession of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders.

My laboratory combines systems neuroscience, neuroanatomy, electrophysiology, molecular profiling, and human neuropathology to define vulnerable neuronal and glial subpopulations. We aim to translate mechanistic insights into new strategies for earlier detection and therapeutic intervention.

Research themes

Head direction circuits and spatial navigation

Understanding how thalamic, hippocampal, and parahippocampal circuits encode spatial orientation and navigation.

Methodology: single neuron extracellular recording and juxtacellular labelling in awake mice, ex vivo slice physiology, transsynaptic viral tracing, immunohistochemistry, neuron reconstructions.

Circuit vulnerability in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Investigating why specific subpopulations of neurons and glia are selectively vulnerable to amyloids, with a focus on the anterior thalamus.

Methodology: histological processing of post-mortem human brain samples, immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, and electron microscopy.

Translational cellular and systems neuroscience

Linking cell-type-specific changes to biomarkers, therapeutic targets, and early neural circuit dysfunction in relation to dementia.

Methodology: intracranial delivery of drugs, behavioural testing in animal models, quantification of biomarkers.

Neuronal coordination and modulation of attention/arousal

Defining the relationship between network oscillations (e.g. theta, gamma, spindles, sharp-wave ripples, dentate spikes), firing patterns, and sensorimotor inputs.

Methodology: single-cell glass electrode and high-density silicon probe recordings, navigation in virtual environments, behavioural testing.

Selected Discoveries

Defining novel subpopulations of head direction cells

Discovered a subpopulation of thalamic head direction cells in mice that express calretinin, and that head direction cells respond differently to light, sound, and movement (Hijazi & Jiang et al Current Biology 2026 in press).

Pathological tau disrupts head direction signalling

Demonstrated that tau pathology in the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus induces spatial disorientation (Jiang & Hijazi et al Cell Reports 2025).

Selective vulnerability within thalamic memory circuits

Localised tau fibrils to subcellular domains of glutamatergic neural circuits within the human anterodorsal thalamic nucleus (Sarkany et al Acta Neuropathologica 2024).

Spread of pathological tau from neurons to glia

Determined that pathological tau (ptau) spreads from neurons to oligodendrocytes in a mouse tauopathy model, and that ptau promotes the loss of high-firing hippocampal neurons (Viney et al Cell Reports 2022).

Specialised medial septal GABAergic cell types coordinate memory networks

Defined low-rhythmic and high-rhythmic firing neuronal populations that contribute to hippocampal oscillatory dynamics (Salib et al J Neurosci 2019).

Translational Neuroscience

Our work bridges fundamental circuit neuroscience with translational approaches for Alzheimer’s disease and rarer neurodegenerative disorders such as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

By identifying vulnerable neuronal and glial subpopulations and defining early circuit dysfunction, we aim to uncover mechanistic targets for therapeutic intervention and biologically informed approaches to prevent or slow disease progression.

Current translational directions

• Early circuit biomarkers of spatial disorientation
• Mapping the origin of amyloids
• Cell-type-specific therapeutic targets
• Defining cellular vulnerability in the human thalamus
• Cross-species translational approaches

Research Leadership

Principal Investigator

MRC Research Grant “Defining neural circuit mechanisms for disorientation in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease” £1.3m

UKRI Marie Curie Fellowship (Dr Sara Hijazi) “Defining how GABAergic inhibition coordinates the firing and tuning of head direction cell types across the anterodorsal nucleus of the thalamus” £192k

Alzheimer's Society PhD studentship “Contribution of the limbic thalamus to spatial memory and tauopathy” £85k

The John Fell Fund

Nuffield Benefaction for Medicine and the Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund

Leadership

• Head of the Mind Brain & Behaviour Research Cluster, Wolfson College, Oxford
• Co-chair of the Safety Policy Committee, Department of Pharmacology, Oxford
• Senior Radiation Protection Supervisor, Department of Pharmacology, Oxford
• International collaborations (including: Prof Michael Hasselmo, Boston University US; Prof Eunji Cheong, Yonsei University, S. Korea)

Supervision and Mentorship

• DPhil supervision (Shan Jiang 2022–2025, Barbara Sarkany 2020–2025, Minas Salib 2015–2019, Michael Crump [co-supervisor] 2012–2014)
• MSc supervision (D. Zaidi 2025, A. Athreya 2024, N. Sypsa 2023, V. Gautsch 2022, H. Hilton 2021, H. Mackay 2020, C. Onyali 2018, M. Salib 2014).
• Intership / rotation / Erasmus+ students (J. Quach 2025, D. Brizee 2021, B. Sarkany 2019, M. Vezir 2016, M. Valero 2014)
• Oxford biomedical and medical sciences students (1–2 students per year)
• Postdoctoral scientists (S. Hijazi 2022–, B. Sarkany 2024–, F. Corsi 2025, S. Jiang 2025–2026, J. Schweimer 2020–2021, T. Ozdemir 2019–2021, S. Hasan 2018, L. Lefevre 2018)
• Clinical fellow mentorship
• Cara (Council for At-Risk Academics)
• College advisor, Wolfson College, Oxford (5–8 students per year)

Academic

• Lecturer and tutor for biomedical and medical sciences students, and MSc Pharmacology students. Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford
• Examiner for DPhil vivas
• Tutor for Oxford Study Abroad Programme
• Reviewer for Nature Neuroscience, eLife, Nature Communications, Current Biology, Neuron, Cell Reports, etc.
• Reviewer for UKRI grants (MRC, BBSRC)
• Alzheimer’s Association reviewer
• Member of the expert panel, National Science Centre Poland (2023 –)
• Member, International Regulatory Peptide Society
• Member, Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment (ISTAART) 

Invited Talks and Public Engagement

Selected invited talks

• 5th DZNE Interdisciplinary Symposium on Spatial Cognition in Aging & Neurodegeneration (iScan 2025), Magdeburg, Germany (10/2025)
• DPAG Head of Department Seminar Series, Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, University of Oxford (01/2025)
• Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico (10/2024)
• Symposium on ‘Astrocytes in brain function and diseases’, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden (06/2024)
• National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA (03/2024)
• Tau 2024 Global Conference (Alzheimer’s Association, CurePSP, the Rainwater Charitable Foundation), Washington DC, USA (03/2024)

Media and outreach

• The Conversation (e.g.  https://theconversation.com/wegovy-and-ozempic-could-the-new-weight-loss-drug-also-treat-dementia-205496)
• Science Media Centre
• Alzheimer’s Society events
• British Heart Foundation – fundraising
• Public neuroscience engagement (school visits)
• Science communication (e.g. New Scientist)