Overview
Crawford Winlove is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience. He grew up in London, and was educated at the University of Bristol. Crawford was introduced by Dr Robert Meech to the possibility of identifying the biophysical basis of behaviour in simple animals. As a result, after a period of fundraising for Amnesty International, Crawford returned to Bristol to complete a PhD with Prof. Alan Roberts FRS. This research used in vivo patch-clamp electrophysiology to understand the role of spinal neurons in animal models of behaviour.
Following the completion of his PhD Crawford was invited to join the prestigious Human Brain project at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), but declined to pursue his developing interest in the roles of cognitive processes in human goal-directed behaviour. Crawford accepted an Honorary Research Fellowship at the University of Bristol, and a Teaching Fellowship at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in 2009. Crawford was appointed as a Lecturer in Neuroscience at the University of Exeter in 2011, a Senior Lecturer in 2018 and an Associate Professor in 2021.
Research
Research interests
Crawford is a Cognitive Neuroscientist, with a general interest in how neural processes give rise to human behaviour.
Most recently, Crawford’s work has focused on Imagination – our capacity for sensory-like experiences in the absence of corresponding external stimuli. A key aspect of this has been elucidating the neural bases for marked differences in imagery vividness: its absence, Aphantasia, and its counter: Hyperphantasia. Much of this work, the Mind’s Eye Project, has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council – and forms the basis of an art exhibition currently touring the UK.
An earlier focus of his work was addiction and substance abuse, motivated by the appalling impact of these conditions. A particular interest has been the neural correlates of craving, an emotional state which appears to precipitate relapse in many substance abusers – and yet be unknown to others. Crawford’s computational modelling of previously published neuroimaging data is starting to reveal the neural basis of these clinically important differences.
Other research has encompassed analyses of the psychological factors underpinning undergraduate alcohol consumption with Dr Mark Tarrant, and the demographic factors associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, with Prof. Tamsin Ford.
Key methods:
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): BOLD, Arterial Spin-Labelling, Voxel-based Morphometry, Diffusion-Tensor Imaging
Anatomical labelling: Implementation of the Connectome Workbench
Modelling: Neuroimaging data; Effect-size meta-analysis
Cognitive research methods: Electroencephalography (EEG); Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
Psychological Testing In-person neuropsychological assessment; the design and development of computerised instruments; survey design and delivery.
Research projects
Current projects include:
The neural correlates of Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia.
Contrasting the neural correlates of Visual Imagery with those associated with Attention, Working Memory, and the Default Mode Network.
Alternative computational approaches to Co-ordinate-based meta-analysis.
The neural correlates of motor imagery.
Changes in imagery associated with psychiatric disorders.
The role of Imagination in Creativity.
How the Neuroscience of imagination can be applied in the workplace
Grants/Funding:
Department of Health £260,000
The Journey to Medicine: A Residential Intervention
Dr Crawford Winlove, Prof. Kevin Murphy (Imperial College), Dr Clare Owen (Medical Schools Council), Dr Ceri Nursaw (Nursaw Associates)
AHRC £80,634
Extreme Imagination – Aphantasia and hyperphantasia
Prof. Adam Zeman, Dr Crawford Winlove, and Prof. Fiona McPherson (University of Glasgow)
Health Education England £19,638
Outbreak Outreach!
Mr Luke Graham, Mr John Stanier, Dr Graham Watkinson, Dr Ian Fussell, Mr William Berkley, Dr Alexander Harding
AHRC £79,981
The eye’s mind – a study of the neural basis of visual imagination and of its role in culture
Prof. Adam Zeman, Dr Crawford Winlove, and Prof. John Onians, FSA (University of East Anglia)
Drink Aware £60,425
Mixed methods assessment of a new intervention for encouraging responsible alcohol behaviour in the night time economy: the “Club Host” intervention
Dr Mark Tarrant, Prof. Charles Abraham, Dr Joanne Smith, and Dr Crawford Winlove
Drink Aware £20,465
Project Extension: Mixed methods assessment of a new intervention for encouraging responsible alcohol behaviour in the night time economy: the “Club Host” intervention
Dr Mark Tarrant, Prof. Charles Abraham, Dr Joanne Smith, and Dr Crawford Winlove
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Publications by category
Journal articles
Tarrant M, Smith JR, Ball S, Winlove C, Gul S, Charles N (In Press). Alcohol consumption among university students in the night-time economy in the UK: a three-wave longitudinal study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Milton F, Fulford J, Dance C, Gaddum J, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, MacKisack M, Knight KF, Winlove C, Zeman A, et al (In Press). Behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes: Aphantasia vs. Hyperphantasia.
Abstract:
Behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes: Aphantasia vs. Hyperphantasia
Although Galton recognised in 1880 that some individuals lack visual imagery, this phenomenon was largely neglected over the following century. We recently coined the terms ‘aphantasia’ and ‘hyperphantasia’ to describe visual imagery vividness extremes, unlocking a sustained surge of public interest. Aphantasia is associated with subjective impairment of face recognition and autobiographical memory. Here we report the first systematic, wide-ranging neuropsychological and brain imaging study of people with aphantasia (n=24), hyperphantasia (n=25) and mid-range imagery vividness (n=20). Despite equivalent performance on standard memory tests, there were marked group differences on measures of autobiographical memory and imagination, participants with hyperphantasia outperforming controls who outperformed participants with aphantasia. Face recognition difficulties were reported more commonly in aphantasia. The Revised NEO Personality Inventory highlighted reduced extroversion in the aphantasia group and increased openness in the hyperphantasia group. Resting-state fMRI revealed stronger connectivity between prefrontal cortices and the visual network among hyperphantasic than aphantasic participants. In an active fMRI paradigm, there was greater anterior parietal activation among hyperphantasic and control than aphantasic participants when comparing visualisation of famous faces and places with perception. These behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes validate and illuminate this significant but neglected dimension of individual difference.
Abstract.
MacKisack M, Zeman A, Winlove C, Onians J, Macpherson F, Aldworth S (In Press). Extended Imagining: the case of the aphantasic artist.
Abstract:
Extended Imagining: the case of the aphantasic artist
Can visual imagining ever be other than a brain-bound, organismically internal process? the practices of artists with aphantasia - the congenital or acquired incapacity to generate visual mental imagery - suggests that it can. Here we report on a qualitative study of ‘aphantasic’ artists and find that imagery lack coincides with a dependence on external, environmental, structures to generate artwork. Indeed, physical manipulations of external media seem to take place in lieu of the ability to generate and manipulate internal, mental images. Cognitive functions that could, for the non-aphantasic, be carried out by mental imagery - such as bringing non-conscious visio-spatial relationships to awareness - can only be carried out for the aphantasic by manipulating their environment. Thus aphantasic art-making constitutes extended visual imagining. As such, it undermines the universality of the ‘hylomorphic’ model of art-making, in which the work is mentally preconceived before being realised in the material world, with the fact of neurocognitive diversity.
Abstract.
Zeman A, Milton F, Della Sala S, Dewar M, Frayling T, Gaddum J, Hattersley A, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, MacKisack M, et al (In Press). Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes.
Abstract:
Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes
Visual imagery typically enables us to see absent items in the mind’s eye. It plays a role in memory, day-dreaming and creativity. Since coining the terms aphantasia and hyperphantasia to describe the absence and abundance of visual imagery, we have been contacted by many thousands of people with extreme imagery abilities. Questionnaire data from 2000 participants with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia indicate that aphantasia is associated with scientific and mathematical occupations, whereas hyperphantasia is associated with ‘creative’ professions. Participants with aphantasia report an elevated rate of difficulty with face recognition and autobiographical memory, whereas participants with hyperphantasia report an elevated rate of synaesthesia. Around half those with aphantasia describe an absence of wakeful imagery in all sense modalities, while a majority dream visually. Aphantasia appears to run within families more often than would be expected by chance. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia appear to be widespread but neglected features of human experience with informative psychological associations.
Abstract.
Zeman A, MacKisack M, Aldworth S, MacPherson F, Onians J, Winlove C (In Press). plural imagination: diversity in mind and making. Art Journal
Zeman AZJ, Milton F, Della Sala S, Dewar M, Frayling T, Gaddum J, Hattersley A, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, Mackisack M, et al (2020). Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex, 130, 426-440.
Fulford J, Milton F, Salas D, Smith A, Simler A, Winlove C, Zeman A (2018). The neural correlates of visual imagery vividness - an fMRI study and literature review. Cortex, 105, 26-40.
Winlove C, Milton F, Ranson J, Fulford J, MacKisack M, Macpherson F, Zeman AZJ (2018). The neural correlates of visual imagery: a co-ordinate-based meta-analysis. Cortex, 105, 4-25.
MacKisack M, Aldworth S, Macpherson F, Onians J, Winlove C, Zeman A (2016). On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
Front Psychol,
7Abstract:
On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical - and even psychological - reckoning with imagery and its parent concept 'imagination'. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination's intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for - and presents challenges to - the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature's most commonly used task - imagining a concrete object - and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Winlove CIP, Roberts A (2012). The firing patterns of spinal neurons: in situ patch-clamp recordings reveal a key role for potassium currents.
Eur J Neurosci,
36(7), 2926-2940.
Abstract:
The firing patterns of spinal neurons: in situ patch-clamp recordings reveal a key role for potassium currents.
Neuron firing patterns underpin the detection and processing of stimuli, influence synaptic interactions, and contribute to the function of networks. To understand how intrinsic membrane properties determine firing patterns, we investigated the biophysical basis of single and repetitive firing in spinal neurons of hatchling Xenopus laevis tadpoles, a well-understood vertebrate model; experiments were conducted in situ. Primary sensory Rohon-Beard (RB) neurons fire singly in response to depolarising current, and dorsolateral (DL) interneurons fire repetitively. RB neurons exhibited a large tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium current; in DL neurons, the sodium current density was significantly lower. High-voltage-activated calcium currents were similar in both neuron types. There was no evidence of persistent sodium currents, low-voltage-activated calcium currents, or hyperpolarisation-activated currents. In RB neurons, the potassium current was dominated by a tetraethylammonium-sensitive slow component (I(Ks) ); a fast component (I(Kf) ), sensitive to 4-aminopyridine, predominated in DL neurons. Sequential current-clamp and voltage-clamp recordings in individual neurons suggest that high densities of I(Ks) prevent repetitive firing; where I(Ks) is small, I(Kf) density determines the frequency of repetitive firing. Intermediate densities of I(Ks) and I(Kf) allow neurons to fire a few additional spikes on strong depolarisation; this property typifies a novel subset of RB neurons, and may activate escape responses. We discuss how this ensemble of currents and firing patterns underpins the operation of the Xenopus locomotor network, and suggest how simple mechanisms might underlie the similar firing patterns seen in the neurons of diverse species.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Winlove CIP, Roberts A (2011). Pharmacology of currents underlying the different firing patterns of spinal sensory neurons and interneurons identified in vivo using multivariate analysis.
J Neurophysiol,
105(5), 2487-2500.
Abstract:
Pharmacology of currents underlying the different firing patterns of spinal sensory neurons and interneurons identified in vivo using multivariate analysis.
The operation of neuronal networks depends on the firing patterns of the network's neurons. When sustained current is injected, some neurons in the central nervous system fire a single action potential and others fire repetitively. For example, in Xenopus laevis tadpoles, primary-sensory Rohon-Beard (RB) neurons fired a single action potential in response to 300-ms rheobase current injections, whereas dorsolateral (DL) interneurons fired repetitively at 10-20 Hz. To investigate the basis for these differences in vivo, we examined drug-induced changes in the firing patterns of Xenopus spinal neurons using whole cell current-clamp recordings. Neuron types were initially separated through cluster analysis, and we compared results produced using different clustering algorithms. We used these results to develop a predictive function to classify subsequently recorded neurons. The potassium channel blocker tetraethylammonium (TEA) converted single-firing RB neurons to low-frequency repetitive firing but reduced the firing frequency of repetitive-firing DL interneurons. Firing frequency in DL interneurons was also reduced by the potassium channel blockers 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), catechol, and margatoxin; 4-AP had the greatest effect. The calcium channel blockers amiloride and nimodipine had few effects on firing in either neuron type but reduced action potential duration in DL interneurons. Muscarine, which blocks M-currents, did not affect RB neurons but reduced firing frequency in DL interneurons. These results suggest that potassium currents may control neuron firing patterns: a TEA-sensitive current prevents repetitive firing in RB neurons, whereas a 4-AP-sensitive current underlies repetitive firing in DL interneurons. The cluster and discriminant analysis described could help to classify neurons in other systems.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Publications by year
In Press
Tarrant M, Smith JR, Ball S, Winlove C, Gul S, Charles N (In Press). Alcohol consumption among university students in the night-time economy in the UK: a three-wave longitudinal study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Milton F, Fulford J, Dance C, Gaddum J, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, MacKisack M, Knight KF, Winlove C, Zeman A, et al (In Press). Behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes: Aphantasia vs. Hyperphantasia.
Abstract:
Behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes: Aphantasia vs. Hyperphantasia
Although Galton recognised in 1880 that some individuals lack visual imagery, this phenomenon was largely neglected over the following century. We recently coined the terms ‘aphantasia’ and ‘hyperphantasia’ to describe visual imagery vividness extremes, unlocking a sustained surge of public interest. Aphantasia is associated with subjective impairment of face recognition and autobiographical memory. Here we report the first systematic, wide-ranging neuropsychological and brain imaging study of people with aphantasia (n=24), hyperphantasia (n=25) and mid-range imagery vividness (n=20). Despite equivalent performance on standard memory tests, there were marked group differences on measures of autobiographical memory and imagination, participants with hyperphantasia outperforming controls who outperformed participants with aphantasia. Face recognition difficulties were reported more commonly in aphantasia. The Revised NEO Personality Inventory highlighted reduced extroversion in the aphantasia group and increased openness in the hyperphantasia group. Resting-state fMRI revealed stronger connectivity between prefrontal cortices and the visual network among hyperphantasic than aphantasic participants. In an active fMRI paradigm, there was greater anterior parietal activation among hyperphantasic and control than aphantasic participants when comparing visualisation of famous faces and places with perception. These behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes validate and illuminate this significant but neglected dimension of individual difference.
Abstract.
MacKisack M, Zeman A, Winlove C, Onians J, Macpherson F, Aldworth S (In Press). Extended Imagining: the case of the aphantasic artist.
Abstract:
Extended Imagining: the case of the aphantasic artist
Can visual imagining ever be other than a brain-bound, organismically internal process? the practices of artists with aphantasia - the congenital or acquired incapacity to generate visual mental imagery - suggests that it can. Here we report on a qualitative study of ‘aphantasic’ artists and find that imagery lack coincides with a dependence on external, environmental, structures to generate artwork. Indeed, physical manipulations of external media seem to take place in lieu of the ability to generate and manipulate internal, mental images. Cognitive functions that could, for the non-aphantasic, be carried out by mental imagery - such as bringing non-conscious visio-spatial relationships to awareness - can only be carried out for the aphantasic by manipulating their environment. Thus aphantasic art-making constitutes extended visual imagining. As such, it undermines the universality of the ‘hylomorphic’ model of art-making, in which the work is mentally preconceived before being realised in the material world, with the fact of neurocognitive diversity.
Abstract.
Zeman A, Milton F, Della Sala S, Dewar M, Frayling T, Gaddum J, Hattersley A, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, MacKisack M, et al (In Press). Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes.
Abstract:
Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes
Visual imagery typically enables us to see absent items in the mind’s eye. It plays a role in memory, day-dreaming and creativity. Since coining the terms aphantasia and hyperphantasia to describe the absence and abundance of visual imagery, we have been contacted by many thousands of people with extreme imagery abilities. Questionnaire data from 2000 participants with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia indicate that aphantasia is associated with scientific and mathematical occupations, whereas hyperphantasia is associated with ‘creative’ professions. Participants with aphantasia report an elevated rate of difficulty with face recognition and autobiographical memory, whereas participants with hyperphantasia report an elevated rate of synaesthesia. Around half those with aphantasia describe an absence of wakeful imagery in all sense modalities, while a majority dream visually. Aphantasia appears to run within families more often than would be expected by chance. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia appear to be widespread but neglected features of human experience with informative psychological associations.
Abstract.
Zeman A, MacKisack M, Aldworth S, MacPherson F, Onians J, Winlove C (In Press). plural imagination: diversity in mind and making. Art Journal
2020
Zeman AZJ, Milton F, Della Sala S, Dewar M, Frayling T, Gaddum J, Hattersley A, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, Mackisack M, et al (2020). Phantasia - the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex, 130, 426-440.
2018
Fulford J, Milton F, Salas D, Smith A, Simler A, Winlove C, Zeman A (2018). The neural correlates of visual imagery vividness - an fMRI study and literature review. Cortex, 105, 26-40.
Winlove C, Milton F, Ranson J, Fulford J, MacKisack M, Macpherson F, Zeman AZJ (2018). The neural correlates of visual imagery: a co-ordinate-based meta-analysis. Cortex, 105, 4-25.
2016
MacKisack M, Aldworth S, Macpherson F, Onians J, Winlove C, Zeman A (2016). On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
Front Psychol,
7Abstract:
On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical - and even psychological - reckoning with imagery and its parent concept 'imagination'. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination's intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for - and presents challenges to - the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature's most commonly used task - imagining a concrete object - and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates.
Abstract.
Author URL.
2012
Winlove CIP, Roberts A (2012). The firing patterns of spinal neurons: in situ patch-clamp recordings reveal a key role for potassium currents.
Eur J Neurosci,
36(7), 2926-2940.
Abstract:
The firing patterns of spinal neurons: in situ patch-clamp recordings reveal a key role for potassium currents.
Neuron firing patterns underpin the detection and processing of stimuli, influence synaptic interactions, and contribute to the function of networks. To understand how intrinsic membrane properties determine firing patterns, we investigated the biophysical basis of single and repetitive firing in spinal neurons of hatchling Xenopus laevis tadpoles, a well-understood vertebrate model; experiments were conducted in situ. Primary sensory Rohon-Beard (RB) neurons fire singly in response to depolarising current, and dorsolateral (DL) interneurons fire repetitively. RB neurons exhibited a large tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium current; in DL neurons, the sodium current density was significantly lower. High-voltage-activated calcium currents were similar in both neuron types. There was no evidence of persistent sodium currents, low-voltage-activated calcium currents, or hyperpolarisation-activated currents. In RB neurons, the potassium current was dominated by a tetraethylammonium-sensitive slow component (I(Ks) ); a fast component (I(Kf) ), sensitive to 4-aminopyridine, predominated in DL neurons. Sequential current-clamp and voltage-clamp recordings in individual neurons suggest that high densities of I(Ks) prevent repetitive firing; where I(Ks) is small, I(Kf) density determines the frequency of repetitive firing. Intermediate densities of I(Ks) and I(Kf) allow neurons to fire a few additional spikes on strong depolarisation; this property typifies a novel subset of RB neurons, and may activate escape responses. We discuss how this ensemble of currents and firing patterns underpins the operation of the Xenopus locomotor network, and suggest how simple mechanisms might underlie the similar firing patterns seen in the neurons of diverse species.
Abstract.
Author URL.
2011
Winlove CIP, Roberts A (2011). Pharmacology of currents underlying the different firing patterns of spinal sensory neurons and interneurons identified in vivo using multivariate analysis.
J Neurophysiol,
105(5), 2487-2500.
Abstract:
Pharmacology of currents underlying the different firing patterns of spinal sensory neurons and interneurons identified in vivo using multivariate analysis.
The operation of neuronal networks depends on the firing patterns of the network's neurons. When sustained current is injected, some neurons in the central nervous system fire a single action potential and others fire repetitively. For example, in Xenopus laevis tadpoles, primary-sensory Rohon-Beard (RB) neurons fired a single action potential in response to 300-ms rheobase current injections, whereas dorsolateral (DL) interneurons fired repetitively at 10-20 Hz. To investigate the basis for these differences in vivo, we examined drug-induced changes in the firing patterns of Xenopus spinal neurons using whole cell current-clamp recordings. Neuron types were initially separated through cluster analysis, and we compared results produced using different clustering algorithms. We used these results to develop a predictive function to classify subsequently recorded neurons. The potassium channel blocker tetraethylammonium (TEA) converted single-firing RB neurons to low-frequency repetitive firing but reduced the firing frequency of repetitive-firing DL interneurons. Firing frequency in DL interneurons was also reduced by the potassium channel blockers 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), catechol, and margatoxin; 4-AP had the greatest effect. The calcium channel blockers amiloride and nimodipine had few effects on firing in either neuron type but reduced action potential duration in DL interneurons. Muscarine, which blocks M-currents, did not affect RB neurons but reduced firing frequency in DL interneurons. These results suggest that potassium currents may control neuron firing patterns: a TEA-sensitive current prevents repetitive firing in RB neurons, whereas a 4-AP-sensitive current underlies repetitive firing in DL interneurons. The cluster and discriminant analysis described could help to classify neurons in other systems.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Refresh publications
External Engagement and Impact
Crawford represents Education and Outreach for the British Neuroscience Association (BNA), and has been a Non-parent Governor, at Clyst Vale Community College since 2013.
Other roles include:
STEMM Ambassador, Devon Business Partnership 2010-ongoing
Member, Selection Alliance, Medical Schools Council 2014 – ongoing
Board Member, “Character Education” Dept. of Education project 2014-6
Member, UK Clinical Aptitude Test Consortium 2015 – ongoing
Expert Register, Science Media Centre 2017-ongoing
Society memberships
British Neuroscience Association (BNA) Joined 2008; Elected 2010
I am the Local Group Co-ordinator (Exeter and Plymouth)
Physiological Society Joined 2006; Elected 2010
I am a member of the Teaching Special Interest Group.
International Academy of Medical Science (IAMSE) Joined 2011
I served on abstract review committees in 2012-15
British Science Association Elected 2013
International Behavioural Neuroscience Association Elected 2014
Crawford also co-ordinates the Medical School’s efforts to Widening Particpation, an area of work which seeks to redress the current reality that children growing up in disadvantage are about 22 times less likely to go to a Highly Selective University than other children (Social Mobility Foundation, 2014). 7% of the UK population studied at an Independent School, compared to 61% of those working in Medicine (Sutton Trust, 2012).
Behind such headlines, there are many ways of characterising disadvantage - all of them imperfect. Such measures can, however, help to prioritise our engagement with those in the greatest need. One such measure of deprivation is living in a Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN1), defined as a Census ward that falls in the UK-wide bottom quintile for the rate at which its residents have participated in Higher Education.
At most Medical Schools in the UK, around 3% of Medical Students come from LPN1 areas. Under Crawford’s leadership, our sustained endeavours to widen participation have seen this figure rise from 4% to 18% amongst our newest entrants. Around 85% of our Medical Students attended a State School.
External funding has played a crucial role in this success, as exemplified by the Outbreak! Project funded by Health Education England. This project involved a series of six-week sessions in which 11-year-old children managed a hypothetical “global health crisis” – something like a virus outbreak. This crisis becomes the focus of all their classes: science classes look at the biology of viruses, whilst geography classes look at the afflicted country in detail, and so on. Crucially, the pupils’ decisions shape how the crisis unfolds, following the feedback of clinicians. Launched four years ago, our evaluation of the intervention’s impact on attitudes to learning, behaviour and attainment will shortly be submitted for publication.
Teaching
Crawford is the Director of the Neuroscience programme at the University of Exeter, having played a central role in every aspect of its design and development. The Neuroscience programme welcomed its first students in 2018.
The course was developed to realise our central commitment to research-engaged teaching. Our aim is not to simply share information, but rather to help students participate in the process of scientific discovery. Therefore, alongside formal teaching sessions, we encourage all our students to become active participants in our inter-disciplinary community.
Crawford has spent over 4000 hours delivering face-to-face teaching for Medical and Science students, for which he has received multiple awards and commendations.
He currently teaches on a range of modules, and convenes the final year module in Cognitive Neuroscience.
Crawford is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Modules
2023/24
Information not currently available
