Professor Margaret Esiri's research activities are mainly in fields related to the use of brain tissue in the Thomas Willis Oxford Brain Collection, including many cases of dementia and elderly controls and multiple sclerosis. In dementia current interest centres on determining to what extent, and in what way, cerebrovascular disease contributes to dementia. In multiple sclerosis Professor Esiri collaborates with Dr DeLuca in understanding the manner in which genetic variables in multiple sclerosis translate into pathological changes in the brain and spinal cord in that disease.