The neural markers of cognitive reserve

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) carries a global annual cost of one trillion dollars, but despite extensive studies, we still don’t know how to prevent dementia or protect cognition in old age. Some people with AD retain good cognitive performance, despite significant brain pathology. Identifying what supports this mental protection could lead to new treatments.

Using a set of large brain-scanning datasets, I will mimic this resilience in healthy subjects by focusing on those subjects who retain good cognitive performance when drowsy and then look at brain structure to identify the neural signature of this resilience. I will then establish whether these neural markers confer clinical benefit by establishing that mental resilience in AD is also supported by the same brain structures.

I will extend these results by running a new brain-scanning study to test whether mental resilience can be improved with drug intervention.