Wollongong researchers investigating how stress contributes to mental illness are getting a financial boost to continue their work thanks to the successful #VaxTheIllawarra campaign.
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The campaign was launched last August in a bid to get the region vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible, with a target of 80 per cent of adults double-dosed.
Dr Natalie Matosin and her team at the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute will receive $15,000 that the #VaxTheIllawarra team raised through corporate sponsorship.
After genetic factors, Dr Matosin said, stress was the greatest risk factor for mental illness.
"We know that stress has an enormous impact on our brains," Dr Matosin said.
"Stress is not always bad for us, it's what gets us motivated... But when we experience stresses that are greater than our ability to cope, it becomes detrimental."
She said much of the work involved studying the brain molecules of people who had experienced mental illness and how these differed to those who had not.
The team found that experiencing severe stress changed the fine properties of the brain cells, Dr Matosin said, and that changed how the brain was wired, affecting behaviour and thinking.
She said if this stress was experienced in childhood, the impact was even greater.
With the funding from #VaxTheIllawarra, Dr Matosin said, the team wanted to buy more laboratory resources to conduct further studies on how significantly stressful experiences - such as the COVID pandemic, bushfires and floods - altered the brain.
She said this research would allow for the discovery of new ways to intervene in and treat mental illness.
Dr Matosin said government funding for medical research was at an "extreme bottleneck", so projects like her team's were made possible with community support.
#VaxTheIllawarra founder Vicki Tiegs said IHMRI did "extraordinary work" and the work of Dr Matosin and her team felt like a fitting legacy for the campaign.
IRT Group's Toby Dawson, another campaign founder, added that it would pay dividends in the future and with this $15,000, the team would make a big difference.
A little over two months after it was launched, the Illawarra had well surpassed the #VaxTheIllawarra target and now has 94.1 per cent of its population aged 16 and over having received two doses, with 64.3 per cent of eligible people with three shots.
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Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
