AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester 2026 – Session Recordings

Recorded at AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester on 26 February 2026, this session explores how physiological and behavioural biomarkers are reshaping early detection, monitoring, and understanding of dementia.

Chaired by Kalliopi Mavromati from the University of Glasgow and Rebecca Egerton from Queen’s University Belfast, the session brings together leading researchers working at the interface of technology, real world behaviour, and brain health. The focus is clear: no single biomarker tells the whole story. Instead, movement, speech, sleep, eye movements and optical signals each provide a different window into the same underlying disease processes.

Senior Plenary

Dr Francesca Cormack examines how digital technologies can capture what truly matters in daily life. Drawing on work in speech analysis, dual task walking paradigms, and remote digital assessments, she highlights how combining behavioural and physiological signals may offer more sensitive and meaningful measures of disease progression. Her talk emphasises grounding innovation in what matters to patients and carers, including communication, mobility, sleep and everyday functioning.

ECR Plenary

Dr Thomas Wilcockson presents research showing how subtle changes in eye movements can predict cognitive decline even in preclinical stages of dementia. Using anti saccade and visual processing tasks, he demonstrates how eye tracking can distinguish between amnesic and non amnesic mild cognitive impairment and may offer scalable screening approaches, including smartphone based eye tracking tools.

Lightning Talks

Short, focused presentations extend the discussion across multiple domains:

Christine Weaver explores acoustic speech analysis and machine learning for diagnosing and monitoring neurodegenerative disorders, drawing on a large annotated neurological speech dataset.

Dr Matt Bancroft compares gait patterns across posterior cortical atrophy, typical Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body disease, revealing distinct walking signatures in atypical dementia.

Dr Kiran K G Ravindran investigates how consumer sleep technologies can generate reliable and stable sleep measures, while highlighting challenges around device reliability and interchangeability.

Dr George Devitt introduces holistic optical biomarkers using multi excitation Raman spectroscopy, demonstrating how vibrational chemical fingerprints may help distinguish different forms of dementia with high accuracy.

Throughout the session, discussion centres on reliability, validation, specificity, and the integration of behavioural measures with cognitive, imaging and fluid biomarkers. Speakers reflect on how these tools might move beyond laboratory settings into clinics and community environments, supporting earlier detection and more meaningful outcome measures.

This recording offers a wide ranging and thoughtful look at how real world data, digital technologies and biological insight can come together to advance dementia research.

@alzassociation #AAICNeuro

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:59 Dr Francesca Cormack
18:39 Dr Thomas Wilcockson
28:27 Christine Weaver
32:51 Dr Matt Bancroft
37:23 Dr Kiran K G Ravindran
40:27 Dr George Devitt
44:11 Q&A

Disclaimer

This content is provided and delivered by Dementia Researcher. It sits outside the Alzheimer’s Association programme, and the Alzheimer’s Association has no involvement in its delivery or sharing.

For any questions about this content, please email dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk
.

To access the official international programme and related sessions, please visit the online event platform:
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Recorded at AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester on 26 February 2026, this session explores how emerging technologies are transforming the way we measure, diagnose and monitor neurodegenerative disease.

Chaired by Dr Ria Kodosaki from University College London and Dr Mosi Li from The University of Edinburgh, the session focuses on how wearable devices, artificial intelligence, digital cognition and multimodal data integration are moving dementia research beyond the clinic and into real world settings.

Senior Plenary

Dr Cynthia Sandor

Dr Cynthia Sandor presents research using smartwatch accelerometer data and artificial intelligence to predict Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before clinical diagnosis. Analysing one week of accelerometer data from UK Biobank participants, her team trained models to detect subtle movement changes in the prodromal phase.

Reduced light activity, consistent with early bradykinesia, emerged as a key predictive feature. Accelerometry outperformed genetic risk scores, blood chemistry, lifestyle factors and reported prodromal symptoms when tested in a general population model. Importantly, the model transferred successfully to an independent cohort, demonstrating robustness across devices and datasets.

Although focused on Parkinson’s disease, the framework offers clear lessons for dementia research: passive, continuous data collection may help identify individuals at risk earlier, track progression more accurately, and refine recruitment into clinical trials.

ECR Plenary

Dr Lukas Hughes Noehrer

Dr Lukas Hughes Noehrer takes a different perspective, asking whether care environments themselves can reveal meaningful signals. Through a year long deployment of a wall sized interactive display in a care home, his team explored how residents responded to different forms of sensory stimulation.

Rather than measuring cognition directly, the work focuses on observable behavioural and functional signals such as sustained attention, group engagement, emotional regulation and time of day sensitivity. These interactive environments acted as longitudinal observation platforms, revealing patterns in how people living with dementia respond to shared sensory experiences.

While not traditional biomarkers, the findings suggest that thoughtfully designed environments may surface clinically relevant signals, particularly for individuals who cannot reliably use wearable or task based digital tools.

Lightning Talks

Dr Zeke Steer – Smart Socks gathering data to inform research, diagnosis and disease
Dr Zeke Steer introduces Smart Socks, a wearable digital biomarker platform developed through Milbotix in collaboration with Alzheimer’s Society. Designed to overcome adherence challenges of wrist worn devices, the socks measure pulse rate, pulse rate variability, electrodermal activity, skin temperature and movement. The aim is to predict agitation and distress, enabling earlier intervention and improved quality of life in care settings.

Labhpreet Kaur – Automatic analysis of informant based collateral information for dementia detection
This study examines whether a large language model can automatically analyse caregiver collateral histories. Early results show moderate agreement with clinician ratings for cognitive and behavioural symptoms, though specificity challenges remain, particularly for functional impairment. The work highlights both the potential and the limitations of AI assisted decision support in dementia assessment.

Luna Nordenström – Online keyboard tapping as a digital biomarker for early frontotemporal dementia
Luna Nordenström explores keyboard tapping as a remote motor assessment across the FTD ALS spectrum. Metrics such as Kinesia score and Akinesia time differentiated symptomatic individuals from controls and correlated with plasma neurofilament light chain and clinical severity scores. The findings support simple digital motor tasks as scalable markers of disease related processes.

Dr Ahmet Begde – Digital cognition plus plasma P tau217 and amyloid beta 42 40 predict Alzheimer’s progression
Dr Ahmet Begde demonstrates that combining blood based biomarkers with short digital cognitive assessments improves prediction of fast Alzheimer’s pathology accumulation. Digital reaction time and memory measures outperformed traditional pen and paper tests, particularly among amyloid negative individuals, supporting multimodal strategies for early identification and trial enrichment.

#aaicneuro @alzassociation

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:41 Dr Cynthia Sandor
22:27 Dr Lukas Hughes Noehrer
32:58 Dr Zeke Steer
37:42 Labhpreet Kaur
42:08 Luna Nordenström
46:15 Dr Ahmet Begde
50:39 Q&A

Disclaimer

This content is provided and delivered by Dementia Researcher. It sits outside the Alzheimer’s Association programme, and the Alzheimer’s Association has no involvement in its delivery or sharing.

For any questions about this content, please email dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk

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At AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester, held on 26 February 2026, this session examined how cognitive testing remains central to dementia research while rapidly evolving alongside digital and biological biomarkers.

Chaired by Dr Rhian Convery from University College London and Viktorija Smith from the University of Cambridge, the session brought together researchers working on remote testing, gene specific composites, digital metrics and biomarker integration.

Senior Plenary

Professor Masud Husain

Professor Masud Husain argued that while fluid biomarkers have advanced rapidly, cognition remains essential because it reflects what pathology means for real world function.

He highlighted the need for scalable, sensitive digital cognitive tools that can detect subtle change years before diagnosis. Traditional in person pen and paper tests are labour intensive and difficult to scale. Remote digital platforms allow high throughput analysis, more frequent testing and potentially greater sensitivity.

Using the Oxford Cognitive Testing Portal, he showed that selected digital tasks can discriminate cognitive impairment with strong sensitivity and specificity. Importantly, certain cognitive measures outperformed plasma markers in distinguishing cognitively impaired from unimpaired individuals, although biomarkers remain necessary to identify underlying pathology.

He also introduced the idea of high frequency testing enabling “N of one” trial designs, where individual trajectories rather than group averages determine treatment response.

ECR Plenary

Dr Chloe Fawns Ritchie

Dr Chloe Fawns Ritchie examined how device type influences remotely collected cognitive data in over 125,000 UK Biobank participants.

Participants completing tasks with a mouse generally performed better than those using touchscreens, particularly on speed based tasks such as Trail Making and Symbol Digit. While the overall structure of general cognitive ability was consistent across devices, systematic score differences suggest that device related effects can bias results.

The findings highlight an important methodological message: large scale remote cognitive testing requires careful documentation of device use and consideration of potential motor and environmental influences.

Lightning Talks

Dr Laura Stankeviciute – Plasma p tau217 and digital cognition
In the Swedish REAL AD population cohort, higher plasma p tau217 levels were associated with poorer remote digital memory performance in cognitively unimpaired individuals aged 65. The results support combining blood biomarkers with remote testing for population scale screening.

Toya Pauwels Romero – Gene specific composites in familial FTD
The GENFI Cog composite captured gene specific cognitive decline across C9orf72, progranulin and MAPT mutation carriers. Early differences were detectable even in asymptomatic C9 carriers, suggesting value for stratification and trial design.

Dr Kirsty Lu – Preclinical biomarkers in the 1946 Birth Cohort
In Insight 46, subtle memory decline associated with amyloid pathology became more apparent between ages 70 and 77. Digital pen metrics, including timing and pause measures, may offer enhanced sensitivity to early change.

Dr Alexander Kaula – Reaction time metrics in paired associates learning
Novel reaction time measures derived from a traditionally accuracy based task showed stronger associations with plasma p tau217 than standard outcomes, suggesting that timing metrics may capture early disease burden missed by accuracy scores alone.

Key Themes

- Cognition remains the bridge between biology and lived experience.
- Digital and remote testing allow scalable, high frequency measurement.
- Device and motor effects must be carefully considered in remote data.
- Reaction time and timing metrics may reveal earlier change than accuracy alone.
- Combining plasma biomarkers with digital cognition may enable earlier identification at scale.

At AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester, this session reinforced that while biomarkers are reshaping dementia research, cognitive assessment remains central, not only as an outcome measure, but as the clearest expression of what disease means for people’s everyday lives.

@alzassociation #aaicneuro

Chapters:

00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:07 Professor Masud Husain
00:19:00 Dr Chloe Fawns Ritchie
00:31:42 Dr Laura Stankeviciute
00:38:00 Toya Pauwels Romero
00:41:30 Dr Kirsty Lu
00:45:30 Dr Alexander Kaula
00:50:42 Q&A

Disclaimer

This content is provided and delivered by Dementia Researcher. It sits outside the Alzheimer’s Association programme, and the Alzheimer’s Association has no involvement in its delivery or sharing.

For any questions about this content, please email dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk
.

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At AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester, held on 26 February 2026, this neuroimaging session explored how advances in MRI and PET are reshaping dementia research, from early detection through to staging and trial monitoring.

Chaired by Dr Michael Stringer from The University of Edinburgh and Dr Darragh Patrick O’Brien from the University of Oxford, the session brought together experts working across imaging technology, disease modelling and clinical translation.

Senior Plenary

Professor David Cash

Professor David Cash outlined three major directions in neuroimaging research.

First, he examined longitudinal trajectories of amyloid and tau in cognitively unimpaired individuals. Evidence shows that people who are both amyloid and tau positive are at substantially higher risk of progression than those with amyloid alone. However, considerable heterogeneity remains, particularly among amyloid positive but tau negative individuals, posing challenges for prevention trials and early intervention strategies.

Second, he discussed disease staging frameworks and data driven progression models. New approaches aim to align amyloid, tau, plasma biomarkers and atrophy along a shared disease timeline. These models refine understanding of when pathological changes emerge, but also highlight the impact of co pathologies such as vascular disease and alpha synuclein on clinical severity.

Third, he addressed accessibility. Ultra fast MRI sequences can reduce scan times while preserving essential information, and ultra low field portable scanners may extend imaging beyond major hospitals. As disease modifying therapies increase the need for monitoring, scalable imaging solutions will be essential.

ECR Plenary

Dr Andreia Rocha

Dr Andreia Rocha compared two commonly used tau PET tracers, MK 6240 and Flortaucipir, to determine whether they assign equivalent Braak stages in the same individuals.

While both tracers broadly follow Braak staging principles, agreement was limited. Only around 43 percent of amyloid positive participants received the same stage with both tracers. In most discordant cases, MK 6240 assigned a higher stage.

These higher stages were associated with greater amyloid burden, elevated plasma biomarkers and poorer cognitive performance, suggesting the differences are clinically meaningful. The findings underline the need for harmonisation when comparing studies that use different tracers or when switching tracers within longitudinal research.

Lightning Talks

Harry Crook – TSPO PET in white versus grey matter in FTLD
Separating white and grey matter signals, this study found stronger associations between white matter inflammation and cognitive impairment in frontotemporal lobar degeneration, highlighting the importance of examining tissue specific patterns.

Lorenzo Barcellos – MRI atrophy rates and PET defined staging
Longitudinal MRI atrophy patterns aligned with PET defined biological stages in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Regional differences in acceleration suggest MRI may approximate aspects of biological staging, offering a more accessible alternative in some settings.

Grace Gillis – Multimodal MRI in a memory clinic
Applying UK Biobank aligned MRI protocols in a real world memory clinic, this work showed that diffusion, perfusion and functional measures add predictive value beyond structural imaging alone, improving explanation of cognitive performance.

Dr Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad – Subcortical volumetric biomarkers
Using large scale UK Biobank data, this study identified characteristic subcortical volume changes associated with ageing and dementia. Volumetric patterns discriminated dementia cases from controls with promising accuracy, supporting the role of accessible structural measures.

A Field Balancing Precision and Access

Across the session, a consistent message emerged: neuroimaging is becoming more sophisticated, but must also become more scalable.

From tracer harmonisation and disease clocks to portable MRI systems and multimodal integration, the field is working to combine biological precision with practical implementation. At AAIC Neuroscience Next Manchester, this session captured both the technical advances and the real world challenges shaping the next phase of imaging research in dementia.

 @alzassociation  #aaicneuro

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:45 Professor David Cash
19:51 Dr Andreia Rocha
28:03 Harry Crook
32:47 Lorenzo Barcellos
36:32 Grace Gillis
40:54 Dr Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad
45:49 Q&A

Disclaimer

This content is provided and delivered by Dementia Researcher. It sits outside the Alzheimer’s Association programme, and the Alzheimer’s Association has no involvement in its delivery or sharing.

For any questions about this content, please email dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk

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This panel discussion brings together experts from across the biomarker spectrum to reflect on how different approaches can be combined to improve detection, monitoring and understanding of dementia.

Chaired by Professor Selina Wray from University College London, the panel includes Professor Masud Husain, Dr Francesca Cormack, Professor David Cash, Dr Marc Suárez Calvet and Dr Cynthia Sandor. Collectively, they represent cognitive assessment, behavioural and digital biomarkers, neuroimaging, fluid biomarkers and technology driven approaches.

Integration Is the Future

A clear message emerges: no single biomarker is sufficient. Scalable combinations such as remote cognitive testing plus blood based markers are seen as promising for early screening, but must remain grounded in clinical context.

Speakers emphasise that biomarkers should complement, not replace, medical assessment. Multimodal strategies that combine cognitive, biological and digital data may offer better staging and tracking of disease.

Practical and Ethical Challenges

Key barriers include cost, regulation, real world implementation and data harmonisation. The panel also highlights risks around unstructured disclosure of blood biomarker results and the need for careful communication.

Representation is a major concern. Without deliberate effort to engage diverse and underserved populations, precision approaches risk widening health inequalities.

Risk, Resilience and Evolving Cohorts

Discussion touches on resilience, lifestyle factors and how shifting population characteristics may require ongoing refinement of staging and diagnostic frameworks.

Advice for Early Career Researchers

- Explore different sectors, including industry.
- Focus on strong scientific questions.
- Quality matters more than quantity.
- Be resilient and open to learning.

The session closes with cautious optimism: integration across modalities is achievable, but only with thoughtful implementation and inclusive research design.

#aaicneuro @alzassociation

Disclaimer

This content is provided and delivered by Dementia Researcher. It sits outside the Alzheimer’s Association programme, and the Alzheimer’s Association has no involvement in its delivery or sharing.

For any questions about this content, please email dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk
.

To access the official international programme and related sessions, please visit the online event platform:
https://onlinexperiences.com/scripts/Server.nxp?LASCmd=L:0&AI=1&ShowKey=287929&LoginType=0&InitialDisplay=1&ClientBrowser=0&DisplayItem=NULL&LangLocaleID=0&SSO=1&RFR=https://onlinexperiences.com/Launch/Event.htm?ShowKey=287929&EmbedTest=NULL&RandomValue=1772472184042

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