Dementia Researcher

In this week’s show Dr Anna Volkmer takes the chair to talk with Shalom Henderson and Dr Siddharth Ramanan from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU) at the University of Cambridge, discussing their research on Understanding Logopenic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia (lvPPA). A little about lvPPA People with lvPPA have increasing trouble thinking of the words they want to say. As time goes on, people with lvPPA have more trouble getting the words out, and they eventually begin to speak slower and slower. The cause of lvPPA is unknown, we do know that in lvPPA there is a large build-up of amyloid and tau within brain cells, like in Alzheimer’s disease. As more and more proteins form in brain, the cells lose their ability to function and eventually die. This causes the affected parts of the brain, most often the left posterior temporal cortex and inferior parietal lobe, to shrink. Most people with lvPPA start to have symptoms in their 50s, although some people have shown signs earlier or later.