John Reynolds (researcher)

John Noble James Reynolds is a New Zealand medical researcher and academic, and a full professor at the University of Otago's Department of Anatomy, studying learning and movement generation in the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia with applications in stroke recovery and Parkinson's disease.

Academic career
Reynolds graduated from the University of Otago with a medical degree in 1994, had a medical practice for several years, and then returned to complete his PhD. In 2016 he was appointed a full professor in the Department of Anatomy of the University of Otago.

Reynolds received an Ako Aotearoa teaching award in 2008, and in 2017 was appointed the first director of the Heath Sciences First Year (HSFY) programme, which attracts 1300–1400 enrollments a year.

In 2010 Reynolds received an inaugural Rutherford Discovery Fellowship for a research programme on rebalancing brain function in both stroke recovery and preventing the progression of epileptic seizures. He has also received a Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Award

In 2019 Reynolds became one the few New Zealand researchers to be funded simultaneously by the three largest national research grants: the Marsden Fund, MBIE, and the Health Research Council. Along with Philippa Howden-Chapman and Greg Cook, he was one of only three University of Otago researchers to have held all three concurrently.

Reynolds is part of the Ageing Well National Science Challenge, spent five years as chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Neurological Foundation of NZ, and is an associate director of the Centre of Research Excellence Brain Research New Zealand.

Research
Reynolds' work is focused on the patterns of brain cell activity in both normal and disordered brains: learning, the mechanism of memory, and the effects of Parkinson's disease and strokes on brain circuitry. Neuroplasticity – how the brain is able to "rewire its circuits" – and its application to neuralogical disorders was the focus of his three largest research grants. Projects include development of targeted drug therapy for Parkinson's disease, and stimulation therapies for tinnitus and stroke recovery. His research group study the effects of neuromodulation in changing synaptic plasticity and restoring normal learning and movement.