Supervisors: Claire Lancaster, Jenny Rusted

Over 850,000 people are living with a dementia diagnosis in the UK. Whilst treatments to halt or reverse dementia-causing neurodegenerative disease are limited, the ability to detect individuals at risk of future cognitive impairment will help advance preventative strategies.

This studentship asks if the patterns of words produced on a simple verbal fluency task (i.e., name as many animals as you can in 60-seconds…) can identify individuals vulnerable to future cognitive decline. You will use natural language processing techniques to characterise subtle differences in the semantic, language and executive strategies to produce words. You will complete research with healthy adults differentiated by whether they carry a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease or not, and with adults referred to NHS memory assessment services with cognitive complaints. 

This studentship will be jointly supported by the School of Psychology, University of Sussex, and the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. You will be supervised by Dr Claire Lancaster and Professor Jennifer Rusted (University of Sussex) – both of whom have expertise in neuropsychology, ageing & dementia, and Dr Naji Tabet – a practising old-age psychiatrist and director of the Centre for Dementia Studies at Brighton & Sussex Medical School.

Project aims and objectives

You will develop an innovative, theoretically driven collection of outcomes for characterising verbal fluency task performance using easy-to-automate, computational techniques. You will subsequently test if these measures are sensitive to the effects of carrying an APOE 4 genetic risk variant for dementia, and if this sensitivity changes with age. You will complete research within an NHS memory assessment service to explore if the verbal fluency measures you have established can help aid diagnosis and 1-year prognosis in a real-world healthcare setting. 

Training Opportunities

This studentship provides training in quantitative research methods, programming, data science and statistics. You will be given the opportunity to attend advanced research methods workshops, both externally and at the University of Sussex.

In addition, you will observe and complete research in an NHS setting. You will gain experience completing research with healthy adults of all ages, plus work with individuals living with a dementia diagnosis.

Applicants: essential and/or desirable attributes/skills

You’re normally expected to have a Merit (an average of 60% overall) in a Masters degree OR an upper second-class (2.1) undergraduate honours degree in a relevant subject area (e.g., Psychology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science). You may also be considered for the studentship if you have other professional qualifications or experience of equivalent standing.

This studentship is ideally suited to individuals with a passion for neuropsychology, especially those considering a clinical academic career.

Studenship details

• This studentship may be taken as either a 1+3 year award (a one-year MSc followed by a three-year PhD), a +3 award (a three-year PhD)
• It may be taken full-time or part-time.