Neurocognitive health and multimorbidity in population cohorts – antecedent and consequence
Supervisors:
Dr Donald Lyall, School of Health & Wellbeing (University of Glasgow)
Dr Simon Cox, Department of Psychology (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Claire Hastie, School of Health & Wellbeing (University of Glasgow)
Prof Daniel Mackay, School of Health & Wellbeing (University of Glasgow)
Summary:
Neurocognitive health, including memory, reasoning and information processing speed, are important for day-to-day life including taking medications and adhering to healthy lifestyles. In multimorbidity, there is some but relatively limited evidence regarding how multiple conditions can affect these important traits, as well as aspects of brain structure which underpin cognitive health. It is not clear if people with worse cognitive health are at higher risk of developing multimorbidity, whether from a healthy baseline or after their first diagnosis of condition.
This project will test for associations between multimorbidity and neurocognitive health (test scores; brain structure) in non-demented people, using large-scale UK Biobank data. It will test whether people with poorer cognitive health are at greater risk for the development of multimorbidity, and how much of that association can be explained by poorer lifetime cognitive scores prior to the onset of poor health. This will be done using the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.
These findings would have substantial implications for the prevention and care of multimorbidity. The project is low risk for high potential gain, using existing data. The supervisory team has expertise in imaging, biostatistics, epidemiology, multimorbidity and neurocognition.