Brun Ulfhake was born in Stockholm in 1952 and graduated as a doctor at Karolinska Institutet in 1980. Medical education was interspersed with research; In 1982, he defended his dissertation on the electrical properties, function and structure of central nerve cells. After that, he was clinically active, including as an anesthesiologist and diving doctor, and conducted neurobiological research at Karolinska Institutet. In 1988 he became an associate professor and in 1994 a senior lecturer. Brun Ulfhake spent a period in the early 1990s as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH, USA, and since 1991 he has been researching at Karolinska Institutet on the relationship between our genome and changes in the function of the nervous system during aging.

Brun Ulfhake was appointed Professor of Anatomy at Karolinska Institutet on 1 March 2001. He has had a number of engagements in both teaching at Karolinska Institutet and animal experiment ethics issues; among other things as director of studies for anatomy education. Since 1 January 2013, Brun Ulfhake has been head of operations for Comparative Medicine.