Newcastle University

Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases (DemaNDs) Research Group

Research Achievements

Brain ageing and dementia research in Newcastle has a 40 year track record of international excellence and achievement with early studies:

• reporting Alzheimer's disease to be the most common cause of dementia in old age
• describing deficits in cholinergic neurotransmission as a key basis for cognitive impairment
• identifying dementia with Lewy bodies as the second most common cause of degenerative dementia

Our recent work has had global, cross-disciplinary impact in relation to the clinical and pathological diagnosis and management of dementia with Lewy bodies and dementia in Parkinson's disease and has further elucidated the role of the cholinergic system in cognitive and non-cognitive symptom formation. 

Other research programmes are investigating cognitive outcomes associated with stroke and cerebrovascular disease and the biological basis of late life affective disorder.  Members of the Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group include key leaders in their respective fields who direct international research consortia and collaborative research initiatives on vascular cognitive impairment and Lewy body disorders. Members of the Group have been appointed to direct the UK Department of Health Clinical Research Network Co-ordinating Centres for Stroke and Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases. 

We also have been awarded funding for an MRC Centre in Brain Ageing and Frailty and funding from MRC and ABBUK to support the Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource (NBTR, 'brain bank'). These together with the Clinical Ageing Research Unit (CARU) form key infrastructure for DemaNDs patient based translational research studies. Research from the DemaNDs group was central to the recent successful renewal of the funding for the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre in Ageing and Chronic Disease and the newly launched NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Unit in Lewy Body Dementia.

Research Strategy

The mission of the Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group is to promote interdisciplinary research on the major causes of cognitive impairment and dementia in later life with the goal of improving diagnosis and treatment and ultimately preventing such conditions. We adopt an integrated approach combining clinical, psychological, neuroimaging, neuropathological, genetic, proteomic and neurochemical strategies, supported by a common infrastructure within the general framework of the Institute for Ageing and Health.

Our strategy is to continue the development of regionally based cohorts of patients with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases identified at the earliest stages and to study them throughout their course until death and a request, whenever appropriate, for brain autopsy. 

The Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource  provides a major and well-characterised collection of fixed and frozen post-mortem material which benefits from these studies as well as from other donations through the national Brains for Dementia Research (BDR) initiative. We also study healthy normal elders both as control subjects and to assist investigation of biological and psychosocial aspects of healthy ageing.

Staff List