Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50% when confounding factors are addressed How heritable is human life span? If genetic heritability is high, longevity genes can reveal aging mechanisms and inform medicine and public health. However, current estimates of heritability are low...

Interestingly increased dementia/CVD but not cancer heritability. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And massive thank you to all co-authors - on Bluesky @rimonaweil.bsky.social @naomihannaway.bsky.social @ivelinadobreva.bsky.social @mfcallaghan.bsky.social and George Thomas, Melissa Grant Peters and Mina Ryten!

Evidence for divergent cortical organisation in Parkinson’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia - Nature Communications Zarkali and colleagues studied brain connectivity in 108 people with Lewy body disease. They found distinct structural cortical reorganisation linked to cognitive, not motor symptoms and implicated ex...

We show similar changes using 7T quantitative MRI, specificity for cognitive but not motor disease burden and correlation with layer 4 excitatory neurons.
Intriguingly our findings match recent findings from post-mortem spatial transcriptomic! Read more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

UCL researchers uncover distinct brain changes in Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia UCL researchers have used advanced brain imaging to uncover the distinct brain changes between people with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, opening the door to more targeted treatments

Really excited to share first published paper of the year! Thank you to @uclbrainscience.bsky.social for highlighting: www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-scienc.... We found different organisational changes in Lewy body disease patients with dementia versus those with intact cognition, using structural gradients.

The Lewy Body Dementia Doctoral Training Network PhD studentships in Lewy Body Dementia at University College London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The Lewy Body Dementia Doctoral Training Network PhD studentships in Lewy Body Dementia at University College London, listed on FindAPhD.com

Excited by neuroimaging and Lewy body dementias?
Currently recruiting for a really exciting project @uclbrainscience.bsky.social with Martina Callaghan, Barbara Dymerska and Mitul Mehta (Kings) for a 4year funded PhD:
More info and apply 👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Diagnostic and other biomarkers of dementia with Lewy bodies: from research to clinical settings Dementia with Lewy bodies is characterised clinically by visual hallucinations, fluctuating cognitive function, parkinsonism, and rapid eye movement s…

Thrilled to share our review on imaging and fluid biomarkers in dementia with Lewy bodies with @angelikaza.bsky.social and wonderful collaborators Brit Mollenhauer Louis CS Tan Michael Bartl and Nick Fox @uclqsion.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#BrainMeeting 🧠 Alert!

This Friday, October 3rd, the brain meeting speaker will be Prof Li Su giving a talk entitled "Digital twin models that talk the talk and walk the walk"

All welcome, in person or online. For more information:
www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/event

The Life Scientific - Sonia Gandhi on building model brains to tackle Parkinson’s disease - BBC Sounds Sonia Gandhi on trying to tackle the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world.

Parkinson’s is now the fastest growing neurological condition in the world.
In this podcast, Dr Sonia Gandhi (@uclqsion.bsky.social) shares more about her work to reverse that trend.
🎧 Listen now:

At UCL, AI is revolutionising dementia research; from faster Alzheimer’s diagnosis to tracking progression and developing new treatments.
This #WorldAlzheimersMonth, explore how our neuroscience experts are improving lives: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKQv...

TOMORROW: Prof Selina Wray (@uclqsion.bsky.social‬) explores what’s next in dementia research at our free Lunch Hour Lecture.
Don't miss out! 👇
#DementiaResearch #WorldAlzheimersMonth

UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences researchers awarded UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Dr Angelika Zarkali and Dr Mathieu Bourdenx have received the prestigious fellowship to lead vital research and develop their careers.

Delighted to finally be able to share this! www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-scienc... Super grateful to everyone who has supported me along the way @ukri.org @alzheimersresearchuk.org @parkinsons.org.uk @uclqsion.bsky.social - most of all my amazing colleagues and mentors at the DRC! Can't wait to get started!!

Basis functions for complex social decisions in dorsomedial frontal cortex - Nature A study combining group decision-making tasks with fMRI shows that the brain’s dorsomedial prefrontal cortex uses basis functions, similar to those in the visual, motor and spatial domains, to re...

New paper from our lab now in @nature.com . We show that our brains use basis functions or "building blocks" to navigate social interactions. Rather than tracking every individual separately, social information is compressed into patterns that can be flexibly combined. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lovely work Marco!

Really interesting study and a great showcase of how tUS can be used to probe mechanisms! 👏👏

Applications MSc Brain and Mind Sciences banner

🧠 Study the science of the brain and mind in London & Paris with our international Brain and Mind Sciences MSc.
Apply now for a September start: www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-...
@UCLBrainScience

🚨 We’re hiring: Associate Professor/Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

🧠 Lead pioneering imaging-informed cognitive neuroscience research
🌍 Open to international applicants | Visa sponsorship available
📍 Permanent, full-time, on-site
🔗 Apply now: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

We are recruiting a new PI at the FIL @imagingneuroucl.bsky.social, Associate or Full Professor. This is an amazing place to do cognitive neuroscience, in the heart of London. If you or someone you know might be interested, please pass it on. #neuroskyence

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Can we use what we’ve learned about cognitive maps to understand social cognition, including theory of mind?
If you’re interested in answering this question then this is a fantastic postdoc opportunity with @mkwittmann.bsky.social in collaboration with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social and my lab.

New research from @angelikaza.bsky.social & colleagues finds impaired glymphatic clearance (measured using diffusion tensor image analysis along the perivascular space) is linked to poor cognitive outcomes in #Parkinsons
movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

However, it is not the driver of the white matter macrostructural changes, grey matter atrophy or iron accumulation seen in those patients! Thank you to all co-authors @rimonaweil.bsky.social @naomihannaway.bsky.social @ivelinadobreva.bsky.social and others not on bluesky!

Impaired Glymphatic Clearance, Measured Using Diffusion Tensor Image Analysis Along the Perivascular Space (DTI‐ALPS), is Linked to Poor Cognitive Outcomes in Parkinson's Disease Background Impaired glymphatic clearance may contribute to pathological accumulations in Parkinson's (PD), but how it interacts with other processes causing dementia remains unclear. Diffusion tenso...

Great to see this published @movedisorder.bsky.social movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...: We found that DTI-ALPS (a proposed indirect proxy for glymphatic clearance) is lower in Parkinson's patients who progress to poor cognitive outcomes, and correlates with cognition. 1/2

Really beautiful work @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social @smfleming.bsky.social! Finally the missing link between perception, imagery and expectations? Now we need a Parkinson's dataset to test ;-)

Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis Although 10 000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active, 7000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a mor...

Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis - The Lancet Public Health www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Cognition and Lewy Body Diseases Study Group

Join the new Cognition and Lewy Body Diseases Study Group to collaboratively study and advance research related to Lewy Body Diseases and Movement Disorders. Learn more: https://loom.ly/eiJ9MEE

Human cortex organizes dynamic co-fluctuations along sensation-association axis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.14.660681v1

New paper!

We introduce an efficient set of statistical features for fMRI time series (calibrated on mouse manipulation experiments and tested on mouse and human data): catchaMouse16.

Paper: doi.org/10.52294/001...

Code (python/Matlab/C): github.com/DynamicsAndN...

I am unbelievably proud to have my first senior author paper published today! It was a long slog through multiple review cycles but we got there!

A big thank you to my lab members and all the collaborators and participants who contributed to this work! 🥲

Here's an open access link to full text of our paper shared last week! rdcu.be/evKF9

More research on under-represented communities:
@angelikaza.bsky.social & colleagues held focus groups with 17 people with #Parkinsons & their care partners from Black communities to better understand barriers & facilitators to participation in research
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Great work by @ivelinadobreva.bsky.social highlighting barriers and facilitators of Black communities in the UK to PD research participation! Thank you to @parkinsons.org.uk for the support in recruiting and disseminating! And of course to the amazing people with Parkinson's who took part!