Cognition and imaging
Rapid advances in brain imaging technology allow our internationally recognised scientists to understand brain alterations linked to dementia, improve early diagnosis and develop better tools to enable assessment of new dementia therapies.
We study patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease, but also have research projects involving healthy participants where we can study the impact of genetic risk on brain and behaviour. Together these studies allow us to study the continuous influences that combine over the lifespan and result in dementia in old age.
How we work
Recent advances in non-invasive neuroimaging techniques have allowed us to develop more refined neurobiological models of how brain networks support memory, perception and social cognition. We now know that distinct networks are affected in different dementia conditions, and that such changes can occur decades advance of behavioural decline.
By applying new knowledge from our genetics and biological pathways theme, we can also explore the impact of dementia risk genes on these networks at a level of precision not previously possible.
By integrating genetic, brain imaging and cognitive approaches, our researchers can study the very earliest brain changes associated with dementia, identify the specific networks affected in different diseases, and understand the sequence of brain changes associated with dementia as we age.
We are particularly interested in structure and functional changes evident decades in advance of dementia, and our researchers have identified specific cognitive markers of dementia risk in early adulthood. Studying dementia as a life-course disorder opens up new opportunities around prevention in high risk groups prior to cognitive decline.
Utilising technology
Researchers have access to world-leading imaging facilities for their work, including the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) and Wales Research and Diagnostic PET Imaging Centre.
Building on CUBRIC’s focus on multimodal imaging approaches, we use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study brain anatomy and brain activity elicited during cognitive tasks.
Use of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) helps us understand the temporal sequence of brain activity.
Our aims
Bringing together information from these different techniques allows us to build a complete understanding of how networks vary across healthy individuals, communicate effectively to support behaviour, and how they degenerate in dementia.
If we can identify the biological mechanisms by which dementia risk genes contribute to diseases, we can improve early diagnosis, generate new treatment targets and help identify modifiable lifestyle factors that could reduce individual dementia risk.
Researchers in the theme increasingly work on large data-sets, enabled by the Dementias Platform UK, and involving analysis of data from UK Biobank and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.
Our work also allows us to develop better assessment tools, including new tablet and app-based approaches able to be used for clinical trials, diagnosis and prevention.
