 He was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1994 to 1997, Secretary of the Labour Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, and a member of the National Executive of the Scotland FORward campaign, the cross party group which campaigned for a YES-YES vote in the 1997 devolution referendum.From 1995 to 1998 he studied for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh, followed by 2 years in a post-doctoral position at the Seckl lab, before embarking on training in neurology.In 2003 he was Visiting Fellow at the National Stroke Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.