Ian McCloskey supervised Gandevia through his PhD on human movement control and proprioception at the University of New South Wales.
At NeuRA, Simon Gandevia studies the mechanisms underlying everyday motor activities such as balancing and walking.
Gandevia and his team have designed the program to focus mainly on three areas: muscle contraction, fatigue, and impaired balance.
With his team, Gandevia has conducted the largest study examining physiological factors contributing to falls in patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Gandevia has also developed the Upper Limb Physiological Profile Assessment, a screening tool used to identify motor impairments.
The experiment involved putting participants in a state of paralysis by restricting the regular rate of breathing, causing increased carbon dioxide levels in blood.
[11] Gandevia conducted research to understand the neurophysiological control of breathing muscles, especially in cases of spinal injury, sleep apnea and chronic obstructive lung disease.
[12] Gandevia and fellow researchers at NeurRA have proposed a novel therapy for the complication of coughing in stroke patients, which involved the electrical stimulation of abdominal muscles to correct muscular behaviour.
It contains a compilation of research presented at a conference held at Cairns, Australia which examined the topic of sensorimotor control from a neural perspective.
Gandevia continues to advocate for high scientific standards and has "increasingly strong concerns about the direction of the country’s research establishment".
[17] Despite being a medical scientist, Gandevia also attended classes at the Waverley Woollahra Art Centre and later at the Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School to learn sculpting where he engaged primarily in sandstone carving.
[5] In 2015, he organized his first art exhibition at the Clara St Gallery Erskineville where he sold some of his artwork with the resulting proceeds being donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).
[18] In addition to engaging in sculpturing, Gandevia also devotes his time to the growth and care of bonsai trees.
He has also been a significant contributor in the development of three gardens modelled in the Japanese style, one of which is located at Neuroscience Research Australia.