Seminar delivered by Dr Holly Spence, Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen
Earlier today, we had a fascinating talk by Dr Holly Spence, on her research using an Aberdeen birth cohort.
Dr Holly Spence is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen whose research focuses on the physical biology of neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Holly completed her PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen investigating the role of brain iron in age-related cognitive decline and exploring the relationships between brain iron and blood markers of iron and inflammation. Having moved to the Gregory Lab within the University of Aberdeen for a post-doc, her primary research interest lies in improving our understanding of the role of heavy metals in neurodegenerative processes including ferroptosis using a disease agnostic approach with the aim of improving symptom burden in patients.
Holly discussed the findings from a supervised machine learning analysis with random forest classification on a cohort of 326 individuals to determine predictors of cognitive performance. 457 features were assessed including brain imaging measures of volume and iron deposition, blood iron and inflammation markers, deprivation indicators and atmospheric pollution exposure.
The talk is part of the ACHDS seminar series, and is available to watch on our YouTube channel: Identifying predictors of cognitive performance in an Aberdeen birth cohort (youtube.com)
If you would like more information please get in touch at achds@abdn.ac.uk