Mapping motivational disturbances in dementia – from mechanisms to management

University of Nottingham Centre for Dementia Seminar: “Mapping motivational disturbances in dementia – from mechanisms to management” Presented by Professor Muireann Irish, The University of Sydney. 14th May 2025, 9am-10am via Teams.

Muireann Irish is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Professorial Fellow, based at the University of Sydney. Muireann’s research program seeks to improve the accurate diagnosis of younger-onset dementia through detailed characterisation of behavioural and neuropsychiatric changes and their underlying neural substrates.

Muireann will present key findings from her MotDem research program examining the multidimensional nature of motivational changes in dementia. Using a variety of clinical tools and neuroimaging approaches, she will show how sensitivity to reward, effort allocation, and loss of hedonic tone can differentiate between dementia subtypes and map reliably onto well-defined frontostriatal brain circuits. Finally, Muireann will demonstrate how she has used this information to develop new assessment tools and non-pharmacologic interventions to improve symptom management in the home and residential aged care settings. Prof Irish is an invited speaker from the Universitas 21 (U21) Dementia Community of Practice. The U21 Dementia Community of Practice was initiated by University of Nottingham Centre for Dementia colleagues Dr Mattea Finelli, Aysegul Kafadar and Dr Esther Loseto-Gerritzen. See here for more information.

Any questions, please contact Nichole Veloso (nichole.veloso@nottingham.ac.uk).