Dennis Chan, sitting in a grassy meadow with trees and wooded hills in the distance
Dennis Chan, sitting in a grassy meadow with trees and wooded hills in the distance This week, to mark World Alzheimer's Day, we meet Dennis Chan, Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Dennis tells us about his research into how VR can help the early detection of Alzheimer's disease. What is your role and what does it involve?. I am a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN) and also a consultant neurologist in Sussex. My main academic focus is the early detection of Alzheimer's disease using tests that probe the functions of the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, the first brain regions affected in the disease. To this end, for clinical studies I use VR-, AR- and app-based tests designed by my ICN colleagues to identify changes in spatial navigation that may herald the onset of disease. This links with work undertaken alongside collaborators in the UCL Dementia Research Institute and Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and studying the spread of AD molecular pathology and its effect on the function of neurons in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus such as grid cells and place cells.
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