Speaker: Alicia Northall from the University of Birmingham, UK

Title: “How does hippocampal pathology affect post-stroke memory impairment?”

Stroke survivors have an increased risk of dementia, yet limited research has considered the mechanisms of post-stroke dementia. The relationship between stroke and dementia may be explained by two hypotheses. The simplest explanation is that dementia and stroke share common risk factors, typically those which increase vascular burden. Alternatively, stroke may initiate pathological processes that cause or accelerate dementia. The hippocampus plays a critical role in memory and atrophy in this area is often used as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Therefore, the hippocampus is a good candidate region to study pathological processes after stroke. The present study aimed to investigate the role of hippocampal pathology in post-stroke memory impairment. In order to assess whether the associations between hippocampal measures and memory were stroke-specific, healthy controls were recruited alongside acute stroke patients with cognitive impairment. Structural and diffusion-weighted MRI data was obtained to assess hippocampal pathology. Memory was assessed using the immediate and delayed story recall tasks in the Birmingham Cognitive Screen (BCoS). Correlational and mediation analyses were used to evaluate how the associations between hippocampal measures and memory were mediated by demographic and clinical variables, such as age, education and vascular risk. The results from the present study will elucidate the mechanisms of post-stroke memory impairment and dementia.