Skip to navigation Skip to main content Skip to footer

Approved research

Hippocampal Subfields and Cognition

Principal Investigator: Dr John Grogan
Approved Research ID: 17720
Approval date: August 1st 2016

Lay summary

We aim to see whether the volumes of different parts of the hippocampus (a brain area involved in memory) are associated with performance on cognitive measures. We predict that people with greater volumes in these areas will have better performance on cognitive measures, such as pairs matching and prospective memory, and that this effect will be greater with age. It will examine whether sizes of hippocampal subfields affect memory performance (also with age as a covariate). This will show whether healthy age-related decline in memory is due to deterioration of the hippocampus, and which subfields in particular. We will use automatic algorithms to calculate the sizes of each hippocampal subfield from MRI images, and then use for associations between these and the cognitive measures. We will also look at the effects on the cognitive measures from the follow-up testing. All participants who completed at least one brain MRI scan (one or more of T1, T2 FLAIR, T2/PD scans).