EXPERT HUB
Professor Alison Murray
Alison is the Roland Sutton Professor of Radiology at the University of Aberdeen. She is Director of the Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence (SINAPSE) a brain imaging pooling initiative, an executive member of the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium and past-president of the Scottish Radiological Society.
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Alison leads NHS molecular brain imaging in people with neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. She has a track record of brain magnetic resonance imaging research in the Aberdeen Birth Cohorts on factors that increase risk of cognitive impairment and conversely, what provides resilience to decline.
She is passionate about the influence of early-life socioeconomic circumstance on late-life brain health
Dr Terry Quinn
Terry holds the post of Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Physician in Stroke. Terry has a broad research portfolio, his principal research interests are around trial methodology, functional assessment and neuropsychological consequences of cardiovascular disease.
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Terry has published extensively on topics relating to stroke, cognition and test accuracy and has authored original research, opinion pieces and editorials for journals such as British Medical Journal; Journal of the American Medical Association and New England Journal of Medicine.
He is Principal Investigator for a number of studies and holds the inaugural CSO/Stroke Association priority program grant for his research into cognitive outcomes following stroke.
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Terry is passionate about evidence based practice and has worked to raise standards in clinical research involving older adults. He holds editorial board positions with various journals, he is coordinating editor for the Cochrane Dementia Group; member of the Dementia Platforms UK vascular theme and part of the NIHR Complex Reviews Support Unit.
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Communicating science is a particular strength and in his role working with patient, carers and lay public, as lead for the Scottish Stroke Research Network he has initiated a number of schemes around research dissemination and involvement. As clinical member of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Heart Disease and Stroke and advisor to Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Terry has ensured that research results inform policy. A recent example is his role as medical advisor to the National report on atrial fibrillation.
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Terry combines his research portfolio with active teaching and clinical commitments in the stroke units of the major Glasgow hospitals.
Expertise
#prevention #clinicaltrials #cohorts #riskfactors #cognition
Craig is the Professor of Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh, Director of Edinburgh Dementia Prevention and Director of Brain Health Scotland.
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Craig is internationally renowned for his work on the design and prosecution of clinical trials. He has been Principal Investigator for almost 30 commercial trials in Alzheimer’s disease, National Chief Investigator for 15 in the UK and Global Coordinating Investigator on 6.
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Craig’s research focuses on early detection of disease and the promotion of brain health throughout the life-course to mitigate risks for development and progression of brain diseases that lead to dementia.
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Craig is Chair of the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium (SDRC) and Chief Investigator of the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) Consortium and the PREVENT Dementia Programme.
Prof Craig Ritchie
Dr Mario Parra Rodriguez
Mario is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and member of the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium Executive Committee.
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Mario graduated as a Medical Doctor in 1993 and as a Clinical Neurophysiologist in 1997. He worked at the Cuban Neuroscience Centre and at different University Hospitals in Cuba and in Colombia. During his clinical work he focused on neuropsychological and neurophysiological aspects of dementia syndromes and other neurological disorders and taught neuroscience related subjects in the field of medicine and psychology.
Mario's motivation for teaching and research led him to a major career change into academia. This started with his PhD in 2005 at the University of Edinburgh and continued with three Postdoctoral Fellowships and a position as a Clinical Studies Officer within the NHS Scotland. Mario was as an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh from 2015 until 2018 before joining the University of Strathclyde.
Expertise
#machinelearning
#neuroimaging
#biomarkers
Dr Amir Dehservi
Amir is a researcher developing automatic methods for detecting (brain imaging, speech, etc.) biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, by considering the novel application of Evolutionary Algorithms.
In his position as a Research Fellow at teh University of Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre, Amir is working with a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists who are focused upon unravelling the mechanisms of chronic fatigue, a salient issue across the chronic disease spectrum. Specifically, he is looking into the analysis and understanding of a multi-modal MRI/fMRI brain study, using machine learning techniques (including Evolutionary Algorithms), in order to characterise the mediators of fatigue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis among other diseases.
Dr Gordon Waiter
Gordon graduated from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, in 1989 with a BSc (Hons) in Physical Sciences majoring in Physics. He then moved to Dundee University, Department of Medical Physics as Research Assistant, to develop MR imaging test objects. He returned to Aberdeen in 1991, this time to the University of Aberdeen to undertake a PhD in Medical Physics, under the supervision of Dr. M. Foster.
He joined the staff of Aberdeen University in 1996 as a research fellow working in collaboration with the university Department of Biomedical Physics and NHS Department of Cardiology to develop image analysis methods for the detection of hibernating myocardium.
In 2001 Gordon joined the School of Psychology to help initiate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a new 1.5T research dedicated scanner at the University of Aberdeen.
In 2004 he joined the Department of Radiology (now part of the Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre) to continue the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging in Aberdeen. His work has included paradigm design, data analysis, data acquisition, quality control and image analysis. Gordon was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2009.
Dr Tom MacGillivray
Tom is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh with an interest in what imaging the retina (i.e. the back of the eye) can tell us about brain health.
Analysis of these image techniques (e.g. fundus, OCT, OCT-A) may allow the identification of biomarkers to aid in dementia diagnosis, quantify disease progress or predict future risk, assess treatment response, and inform decision making in drug discovery.
Expertise
#retina
#retinalimaging
#imageanalysis
#machinelearning
Dr Tom Russ
Tom is a consultant psychiatrist in NHS Lothian, Director of the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre (ASDRC), University of Edinburgh, and an honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh.
He spends half his time on clinical work in two specialist dementia units and in the memory clinic in Edinburgh and the other half of his time on research. His research began by examining geographical variation in dementia risk in Scotland and Sweden and now focuses particularly on environmental risk factors for dementia, such as air pollution.
The overall research focus of the ASDRC is wide and balanced, ranging from optimising computational models to the lived experience of dementia, including what it feels like to feel free with dementia.
