Cognition and imaging projects
These are some of the projects our researchers are working on that fall within the theme of cognition and imaging.
Understanding how genes affect the brain and behaviour
Researchers in our group have shown that genetic variations associated with Alzheimer’s disease result in brain alterations in circuitry linked to memory in early adulthood (Lancaster et al., 2015; Shine et al., 2015). We have also shown that dementia risk is linked to reduced volume in the hippocampus (Foley et al., 2016), and altered structural connectivity.
These studies highlight how individual risk genes linked to Alzheimer’s disease affect brain structure and function, and that these effects can be seen decades before the presentation of behavioural changes. Now, we are looking to combine information about an individual’s overall genetic risk of dementia to develop more sensitive measures of dementia risk, and enhance understanding of these critical brain changes.
Applying novel imaging methods for increased sensitivity
Working with physicists at the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), we have shown the importance of changes in structural pathways linked to the hippocampus in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s disease (Christiansen et al., 2016).
Technology at CUBRIC enables our researchers to study structural brain networks in even greater detail and facilitate new methods to look at small brain structures implicated in dementia.
This work is the foundation for a large MRC-funded grant to study structural and functional brain alterations in individuals at risk of Alzheimer’s disease. This project is being enabled by collaboration with Bristol University, in particular access to their unique birth cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), as well as Oxford University.
Understanding the link between genes and biology, and in turn behaviour
The common genetic variants known to increase risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease seem to relate to specific processes in the brain. In order to understand why individuals at genetic risk might show brain changes, we are now looking to integrate knowledge from brain imaging and cognition with markers of the biological pathways these risk genes are known to affect.
This work involves experimental studies looking at the relationship between inflammatory markers and cardiovascular health in early adulthood and midlife, as well as large-scale data analyses in some of the UK’s leading cohorts. The findings of this work would help focus efforts to find new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, and guide the design of drug trials by exploring the processes underlying the disease and developing new cognitive and brain markers of key neurocognitive circuits.
Enhanced assessment tools to enable more effective clinical trials
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic, progressive neurodegenerative disease causing neuropsychiatric symptoms (such as depression and apathy) and a hyperkinetic movement disorder. The neuropsychiatric symptoms affect function and quality of life and, like other dementias, occur years before motor onset. Current assessments are based on questionnaires or psychiatric interviews, and limit exploration of the neurobiology of the disease.
Our new battery of tasks is designed to assess these neuropsychiatric symptoms. To study the neurobiology of apathy in HD we are also using functional imaging to assess changes in the brain during reward-based tasks. The work will allow parallel assessments in animals and humans, in order to test the effects of novel treatments on these symptoms, as well as allowing us to understand why patients with HD develop these problems.
