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Dr Sommerlad awarded Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship
8 March 2022
The fellowship will examine the nature and consequences of social cognitive impairment in people with Alzheimer's Disease.
About
Dr Andrew Sommerlad, Principal Research Fellow in the Division of Psychiatry, has been awarded a 4-year Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship.
The fellowship seeks to understand the decline in social functioning experienced by people with Alzheimer’s dementia to help inform future development of treatments aiming to improve this important and distressing aspect of the condition.
About receiving the award, Dr Sommerlad said:
“I was delighted to receive this funding for this important research and excited to work with my project partners across UCL Division of Psychiatry, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Research IT Services and Institute of Neurology and with those in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands.”
Explaining his research, Dr Sommerlad will investigate the links between deficits in understanding the mental states of others (theory of mind) and declining social functioning as theory of mind impairments are a possible key driver of this decline. The study will assess over 200 people with Alzheimer’s dementia and follow them up over time as their condition progresses.
Dr. Sommerlad noted that:
“This study will help us to understand which future therapies may improve social functioning in people with Alzheimer’s dementia. Treatments for theory of mind which are effective in other neuropsychiatric conditions could be exciting future treatments, such as by working with patients and their families to maintain and adapt to theory of mind difficulties.”