Biography
Prof Catherine N. Hall’s research focuses on how the brain regulates its blood flow, and how insufficient blood supply to the brain can impact its function and promote dementia. After her undergraduate degree in Physiology with Psychology at the University of Oxford, she moved to University College London for her PhD, under the supervision of Professor John Garthwaite, where she studied the kinetics of nitric oxide signals in brain tissue. She then did a post doc with Professor David Attwell, also at UCL, studying the processes by which oxygen is consumed and supplied to brain, and revealing the importance of capillary pericytes for control of brain blood flow. In 2014 she moved to the University of Sussex to start her lab, and in 2025 rejoined UCL, the UK DRI and the BHF-UK DRI Centre for Vascular Dementia Research, while maintaining a position and lab in Sussex. Her labs use chronic imaging of neurons, glia and blood vessels in mice, alongside biochemical and molecular approaches, to understand how the brain’s blood flow regulation is altered by conditions that increase risk of dementia, and how altering the brain’s oxygen supply affects brain function.