Owen A Williams

I investigate the ways that cognitive abilities change over the course of healthy ageing and as a consequence of pathological brain changes due to stroke and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, I seek to understand individual differences in longitudinal trajectories of cognitive decline leading to impairment. My primary aim is to produce work that will be clinically relevant and ultimately improve how patients are assessed, monitored and treated for vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. For example, during my PhD I developed a neuroimaging analysis tool to provide longitudinal measures of cerebral small vessel disease progression which could accurately predict conversion to dementia.

As a postdoc in the Translational Neuropsychology Group I am working on a longitudinal study of the long term psychological consequences of stroke (Ox-Chronic). I will be working on improving our understanding of the prevalence, mechanisms and trajectories of cognitive impairment (e.g. inability to sustain attention or memory failures) and psychological wellbeing (e.g. depression and anxiety) in long term (> two years post-stroke) survivors of stroke.