Two Full-time PhD (via MPhil) studentships are available at Liverpool John Moores University, via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (ARC NWC). NIHR ARC NWC is one of 15 regional ARCS funded by the NIHR to bring together those needed to support research to improve health and care. Our vision is to address the considerable health inequalities across our region through the collaborative production and implementation of high-quality applied health research in our five themes. Research supported by the ARC NWC must be relevant to the needs of the diverse communities served by the NIHR ARC NWC and its local health and care system, and be generalisable across health and care nationally, as well as within the local health and care system where it is conducted. Our Doctoral Fellows are distributed across the themes and universities and are a crucial part of our Academic Career Development Strategy.
The supervisory teams have a broad range of expertise, and experience in successful supervision to PhD completion. Two from the 11 projects currently advertised will be funded, reference ARC1-11.
Impact of Cognitive reserve on the association between Atrial Fibrillation and subtypes of Dementia. The CORE study.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) and dementia are largely prevalent and incident in progressively older subjects, suggesting a link between the two conditions. Different forms of dementia have been described in patients with AF including vascular, degenerative or mixed types, suggesting that multiple factors interact in this clinical interlink.
Apart from the type of insult, the probability of developing dementia is related to an individual propensity, called cognitive reserve (CoRe). CoRe is related to the plasticity of the central nervous system, which is built during the life course.
A validated test to assess the CoRe has been developed, which is capable of characterizing two patterns: high resilient and low resilient with different clinical behaviours.
The main objectives of the CoRe project are:
1) to determine the prevalence of different types of CoRe among patients with AF;
2) to assess the prevalence of dementia and its subtypes according to the CoRe
3) to determine the clinical evolution according to the cluster of resilience;
The Core project will be developed into three WPs:
WP1. A systematic review of cognitive health in patients with AF, focused on risk factors, best methods of evaluation and best interventions.
WP2. A cross-sectional study will be carried out to assess prevalence of CoRe and dementia among a cohort of patients with AF. Patients with hypertension without AF will be used as a ‘disease control’ group with a 2:1 ratio. The student, will choose the clinically relevant outcomes and chosen measurement tools based on the results of the systematic review.
WP3. In a prospective study, association between development of dementia subtype, CoRe and environmental and social cardiovascular risk factors and biohumoral markers will be explored. The CoRe study can be linked to the prospective Liverpool Heart And bRain (L-HARP) project to correlate imaging findings with the type of dementia developed.
Contact details: For more information please contact Professor Ian Jones
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