Dr Daniel Blackburn
BSc, MBChB, MRCP, PhD
School of Medicine and Population Health
Senior Lecturer
Honorary Consultant Neurologist
+44 114 215 9101
Full contact details
School of Medicine and Population Health
Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
385a Glossop Road
Sheffield
S10 2HQ
- Profile
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I completed my undergraduate medical degree in Liverpool in 1998 and did my medical training in London. I have worked as a neurology SpR in Singapore and Nottingham prior to joining the University of Sheffield as a PhD student in 2005.
I worked as a clinical lecturer in Neurology from 2010-2013.I have been a senior lecturer since 2018. My main subspecialty interest is in dementia.
- Research interests
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My research interests are into developing non-invasive scalable diagnostic tests for early dementia or cognitive impairment. I am investigating novel mechanisms of diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, post-stroke dementia and other dementias using automated assessment of language & electroencephalography (EEG).
I co-lead the development of CognoSpeakTM (cognospeak.com) with Heidi Christensen from UoS Department of Computer Science (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/dcs). This is an automated assessment of Cognition that can be undertaken in people’s own homes. We have several on-going grants to develop this for use in Memory Assessment Pathways (MAP) and in the post-stroke population
I am working on novel resting state EEG processing approach to detect cognitive impairment.
I am investigating the utility of telematics to assess driving safety.
I also have a research interest in the role of astrocytes in neurodegeneration. My PhD investigated this in MND and I am part of a team investigating an in-vitro model of sporadic AD using inducible Neural Precursor Technology to grow astrocytes and neurones from people with sporadic AD and assay metabolic markers.
Current Projects
PI: University of Sheffield, Participatory Research. Feb-July 2023. Co-evaluation of partnership working to develop AI dementia detection health technology. £14,030
PI:INIHR i4i grant. CognoSpeak: a Cognitive Health Assessment Tool (CcHAT). £1.47M. 36 months. Start date 01.02.2022
COEN6011: Investigating neuronal hyperactivity as a link between amyloid-β and tau spreading in Alzheimer’s disease (NeurActAmy) Submitted Dec 2022- Successful
KE Funding application, £22,904 of EPSRC funding awarded to support project: ‘Establishing medical device regulatory appropriate software development at TUoS: Establish and trial an eQMS solution for CognoSpeak (CognoSpeak-eQMS)’. Dec 2022-June 2023.
Alzheimer Research UK Local Network grant, Investigating Barriers to Accessing Memory Pathways for people from South Asian background and exploring acceptability of CognoSpeak (automated cognitive assessment tool). Hina Khan, Dr Gregor Russell and Iftikhar Khan (Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust) & Dr Daniel Blackburn £5000. March 2023- Feb 2024
NIHR HSDR: Improving triadic decision making involving people with dementia. Led by Traci Walker (co-applicants Markus Reuber, Simon Bell, Alistair Wardrope). Start date 01.10.2022- 30.09.202. £525,092.89.
NIHR Three Schools: Dementia Research Programme. Improving the lives of people living with dementia and carers 2021-2024. Dementia Career Development Awards: Establishing a dementia related research career and writing a research funding proposal focused on developing a complex intervention to support the wellbeing of people with mild cognitive impairment, using a public health approach. Start date 01.06.2022- 31.06.2023; £36,145
Equal, diverse and inclusive primary care research delivery (EDI-PCR delivery). Jon Dickson, Professor Liddy Goyder, Professor Adewale Adebajo MBE, Jodie Keyworth, Dr Dan Blackburn, Steve Knight, Professor Simon Heller, Dr Dipak Patel, Professor Chris Newman, Karen French, Ian Baxter. Start date March 2022- End date July 2022. £30K
UKRI ISCF Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award 2020; Understanding elderly drivers' behaviour and fitness to drive. £62,500
Rosetrees Charity INTERDISCIPLINARY PRIZE 2019
MEDICINE WITH MATHEMATICS / COMPUTING / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPutational Assessment of Stroke Survivors (COMPASS) £250,000 (co-funded with Knowledge Exchange,(UoS), Clinical Research Network Yorkshire & Humber,Health & Care Partnership, Sheffield. Remote monitoring people with Mild Cognitive Impairment using combined technology of the Digital Doctor and ViVA £24,774 2019-2021.
Health Education England/NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic Programme Internship Scheme 2019/20. £8000. Zoe Unwin, EEG physiologist.
Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) Pump Priming Award Notification (£7,000), 2018. Investigating potential of QEEG and digital doctor in memory assessment pathways in Kenya
Medical Research Council Confidence in Concept. COCOA (COmputerised Cognitive Assessment) – proof-of-concept. 2018-19. £49,513
4wardNorth Wellcome Academy PhD Training Fellowship to fund Dr Simon Bell’s PhD project- Characterising astrocyte metabolic deficits in sporadic and familial AD to identify new therapeutic targets. 2018-2020.
Neuroscience Research fund- Ryder Briggs (£32,000) March 2017-19. Developing qEEG as biomarker in fronto-temporal dementia.
ARUK: ARUK-PPG2018A-009: Neutrophil derived microvesicles: linking systemic inflammation and dementia. PI Julie Simpson. 2018-19.
Neuroscience small grant from Sheffield teaching Hospital’s- to fund Academic Clinical Fellow Ronan O’Malley develop the Avatar project to analyse semantic and letter fluency using Automatic Speech Recognition- 2018. (£3200)
Alzheimer research UK Preparatory Clinical Research Fellowship (ARUK-PCRF2016A-1: £69998- Jan 2016). Creating an Astrocyte model of Alzheimer’s disease using induced Neural Progenitor Cell Technology PI is Simon Bell who is my academic clinical fellow I am supervising. Collaboration with Professor Stephen Wharton, Drs Laura Ferraiuolo and Heather Mortiboys.
NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme. 14/140/80 Journeying through dementia; randomised controlled trial of clinical and cost effectiveness. 2015-2019. (£2,017,925). Collaboration with ScHARR and Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust
NIHR Research Design Service Yorkshire and Humber (RDS YH) public involvement in grant application to develop Public and patient acceptability and co-design input on the Avatar project (£480) 2018.
Medical Research Council Proximity to Discovery (MRC P2D: £4,988). Development of a novel biomarker for dementia diagnosis based on quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG). 2015-2016. Collaboration between neurophysiology and a commercial partner the BlackBox Toolkit company
Alzheimer’s Research United Kingdom (ARUK-PPG20114B-25) 2014-2016 (£29,805). Plus Yorkshire branch of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust Network. 2015 (£4000). Both ARUK grants are for ‘Developing a new biomarker for the early diagnosis of dementia; a novel non-linear signal processing approach using resting state EEG’
NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme: PB-PG-0211-24079 – Using Conversation Analysis in the Differential Diagnosis of Memory Problems: a pilot study. 2013-2015. (£230,000).
- Publications
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Journal articles
- CognoSpeak: an automatic, remote assessment of early cognitive decline in real-world conversational speech. 2025 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Health and Medicine (CIHM), 1-7. View this article in WRRO
- Early dementia detection using multiple spontaneous speech prompts: The PROCESS challenge. ICASSP 2025 - 2025 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 1-2. View this article in WRRO
- A two-step attention-based feature combination cross-attention system for speech-based dementia detection. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, 33, 896-907. View this article in WRRO
- Increasing hexokinase 1 expression improves mitochondrial and glycolytic functional deficits seen in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease astrocytes. Molecular Psychiatry, 30(4), 1369-1382. View this article in WRRO
- Improving current understanding of cognitive impairment in patients with a spinal cord injury: A UK-based clinician survey. The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine. View this article in WRRO
- The first step in triadic decision-making involving people with dementia: determining who talks when. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 57(4), 399-416. View this article in WRRO
- Staying positive: producing net power. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 382(2280).
- Genome-wide analyses reveal a potential role for the MAPT, MOBP, and APOE loci in sporadic frontotemporal dementia. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 111(7), 1316-1329.
- Spoken language-based automatic cognitive assessment of stroke survivors. Language and Health, 2(1), 32-38.
- Dementia classification using a graph neural network on imaging of effective brain connectivity. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 168, 107701-107701.
- Author Correction: Tau-targeting antisense oligonucleotide MAPTRx in mild Alzheimer’s disease: a phase 1b, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Nature Medicine, 30(1), 304-304.
- Speech patterns in responses to questions asked by an intelligent virtual agent can help to distinguish between people with early stage neurodegenerative disorders and healthy controls. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 38(9), 880-901. View this article in WRRO
- Perceptions and attitudes of farmers and landowners on soil salinity management and use of elemental sulphur in Oman. Soil Use and Management, 40(1).
- IgG4 disease-related ataxia. The Cerebellum, 23, 1231-1234. View this article in WRRO
- Feasibility of longitudinal automated cognitive assessment in the stroke pathway. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 19(S14).
- Developing an automated Cognitive assessment based on language; CognoSpeak‐ working with an ethnic minority group. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 19(S20).
- Deficits in mitochondrial function and glucose metabolism seen in sporadic and familial Alzheimer’s disease derived Astrocytes are ameliorated by increasing hexokinase 1. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 19(S13). View this article in WRRO
- Testing central auditory processing abilities in older adults with and without dementia using the consonant-vowel dichotic listening task. Frontiers in Dementia, 2. View this article in WRRO
- Features of answers to questions about recent events by people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, and healthy controls. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 14(3), 408-429. View this article in WRRO
- Adaptive Gated Graph Convolutional Network for Explainable Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease Using EEG Data. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 31, 3978-3987.
- Differences between healthy adults and mild cognitive impairment patients in Category Fluency performance: A scoring method based on words’ Serial Recall Order and item‐level features. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 19(S4).
- Kernel-based Nonlinear Manifold Learning for EEG-based Functional Connectivity Analysis and Channel Selection with Application to Alzheimer’s Disease. Neuroscience, 523, 140-156.
- An open-source power balance model for the estimation of tokamak net electrical power output. Fusion Engineering and Design, 191, 113563-113563.
- Understanding the autonomy of adults with impaired capacity through dialogue. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(7), 493-494.
- Cross-Frequency Multilayer Network Analysis with Bispectrum-based Functional Connectivity: A Study of Alzheimer’s Disease. Neuroscience, 521, 77-88.
- Tau-targeting antisense oligonucleotide MAPTRx in mild Alzheimer’s disease: a phase 1b, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Nature Medicine, 29, 1437-1447. View this article in WRRO
- EEG-based graph neural network classification of Alzheimer’s disease: an empirical evaluation of functional connectivity methods. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 30, 2651-2660.
- FEASIBILITY OF AN AUTOMATED ASSESSMENT TO MEASURE COGNITION AND MOOD IN THE ACUTE STROKE SETTING. JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY, 93(9).
- Ultra-high-resolution time-frequency analysis of EEG to characterise brain functional connectivity with the application in Alzheimer’s disease. Journal of Neural Engineering, 19(4), 046034-046034.
- Keeping patient and public partnership at the heart of medical technology development during Covid-19 : examples of adaptive practice. Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, 46(6), 472-481.
- RNA-Seq profiling of neutrophil-derived microvesicles in Alzheimer’s disease patients identifies a miRNA signature that may impact blood–brain barrier integrity. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(11). View this article in WRRO
- The impact of social isolation due to COVID-19 on symptom progression in people with dementia : findings of the SOLITUDE study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13.
- The impact of social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with dementia and caregivers. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 34(5), 276-281.
- Characterising Alzheimer’s Disease With EEG-Based Energy Landscape Analysis. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 26(3), 992-1000.
- Patient and clinician experience of providing remote memory assessment services. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 37(2).
- Study protocol: SOcial LImitations Turn Up DEmentia (SOLITUDE)—Impact of COVID‐19 social isolation on patients’ cognition and mental health and on carers’ wellbeing. Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association, 17(S7). View this article in WRRO
- Characterising spoken interactions of healthy ageing adults with CognoSpeak, a web‐based cognitive assessment tool. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 17(S5).
- Kernel-based Nonlinear Manifold Learning for EEG Channel Selection with Application to Alzheimer’s Disease.
- Reply : Functional cognitive disorder : dementia's blind spot. Brain, 144(9).
- Serial recall order and semantic features of category fluency words to study semantic memory in normal ageing. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 13.
- Cushing’s disease presenting with psychosis. Practical Neurology, 21(4), 351-353.
- How can automated linguistic analysis help to discern functional cognitive disorder from healthy controls and mild cognitive impairment?. BJPsych open, 7(Suppl 1), S7-S7.
- Using interictal seizure-free EEG data to recognise patients with epilepsy based on machine learning of brain functional connectivity. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 67, 102554-102554.
- Soil skills challenge: A problem-based field competition towards active learning for BSc. Geoscience students. Geoderma, 385, 114903-114903.
- Characterising spoken responses to an intelligent virtual agent by persons with mild cognitive impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 35(3), 237-252. View this article in WRRO
- Obesity and brain vulnerability in normal and abnormal aging: a multimodal MRI study. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports, 5(1), 65-77. View this article in WRRO
- Mitochondrial dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease : a biomarker of the future?. Biomedicines, 9(1).
- Neurologists’ perceptions of utilising tele-neurology to practice remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(3), 452-459. View this article in WRRO
- Fully automated cognitive screening tool based on assessment of speech and language. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 92(1), 12-15.
- Diagnostic and investigative approach of consultant neurologists in a real‐world clinical setting: A pilot study. International Journal of Clinical Practice, 75(4).
- The association between polygenic hazard scores and clinical markers of Alzheimer’s disease following stratification for APOE genotype. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 16(S4).
- Peripheral glycolysis in neurodegenerative diseases. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(23). View this article in WRRO
- The association between polygenic hazard and markers of Alzheimer’s disease following stratification for APOE genotype. Current Alzheimer Research, 17(7), 667-679. View this article in WRRO
- Cognition and behaviour in frontotemporal dementia with and without amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 91(12), 1304-1311.
- Functional cognitive disorder : dementia’s blind spot. Brain, 143(10), 2895-2903. View this article in WRRO
- C9orf72
, age at onset, and ancestry help discriminate behavioral from language variants in FTLD cohorts. Neurology, 95(24).
- Brain hyper-excitability in DPPX ataxia. Journal of Neurology, 267(10), 3096-3099.
- The Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen (ECAS) in frontotemporal dementia. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration, 21(7-8), 606-613.
- 26 Can an automated assessment of language help distinguish between Functional Cognitive Disorder and early neurodegeneration?. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 91(8), e18.2-e19.
- Understanding the links between hearing impairment and dementia : development and validation of the social and emotional impact of hearing impairment (SEI-HI) questionnaire. Neurological Sciences, 41(12), 3711-3717. View this article in WRRO
- Cognitive behavioural therapy for adults with dissociative seizures (CODES): a pragmatic, multicentre, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(6), 491-505. View this article in WRRO
- Nonlinear Classification of EEG recordings from patients with Alzheimer’s Disease using Gaussian Process Latent Variable Model.
- Imaging of nonlinear and dynamic functional brain connectivity based on EEG recordings with the application on the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 39(5), 1571-1581.
- Developing an intelligent virtual agent to stratify people with cognitive complaints: A comparison of human-patient and intelligent virtual agent-patient interaction. Dementia, 19(4), 1173-1188. View this article in WRRO
- Deficits in mitochondrial spare respiratory capacity contribute to the neuropsychological changes of alzheimer’s disease. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 10(2). View this article in WRRO
- Safety, tolerability, and nocebo phenomena during transcranial magnetic stimulation: a systematic review and meta‐analysis of placebo‐controlled clinical trials. Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface, 23(3), 291-300. View this article in WRRO
- Do deficits in mitochondrial spare respiratory capacity contribute to neuropsychological changes seen in Alzheimer’s disease? (798). Neurology, 94(15_supplement). View this article in WRRO
- A fully automated cognitive screening tool based on assessment of speech and language (5548). Neurology, 94(15_supplement).
- Tremor after long term lithium treatment; is it cortical myoclonus?. Cerebellum & Ataxias, 6(5). View this article in WRRO
- 055 The digital doctor : a fully automated stratification and monitoring system for patients with memory complaints. Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(12). View this article in WRRO
- 045 Food for thought: an unusual case of frontotemporal dementia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(12), A21.2-A21.
- 056 Exploring the feasibility of automating verbal fluency tasks for cognitive assessment : data collection and analysis. Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(12). View this article in WRRO
- 11.39 Association of british neurologists sustainability special interest group (ABN sustainability SIG): formation, objectives and invitation. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(12), A2.3-A3.
- Characteristics of 698 patients with dissociative seizures: A UK multicenter study. Epilepsia, 60(11), 2182-2193. View this article in WRRO
- Altered frontal and insular functional connectivity as pivotal mechanisms for apathy in Alzheimer’s disease. Cortex, 119, 100-110. View this article in WRRO
- Cognitive deficits in vasculitis of the nervous system: a cross-sectional study. Postgraduate Medicine, 131(7), 546-549. View this article in WRRO
- A new diagnostic approach for the identification of patients with neurodegenerative cognitive complaints. PLoS ONE, 14(5). View this article in WRRO
- A dementia classification framework using frequency and time-frequency features based on EEG signals.. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 27(5), 826-835. View this article in WRRO
- Dementia detection using automatic analysis of conversations. Computer Speech and Language, 53, 65-79. View this article in WRRO
- Ursodeoxycholic Acid Improves Mitochondrial Function and Redistributes Drp1 in Fibroblasts from Patients with either Sporadic or Familial Alzheimer's Disease. Journal of Molecular Biology, 430(21). View this article in WRRO
- Music for relaxation: a comparison across two age groups. Journal of Music Therapy, 55(4), 439-462. View this article in WRRO
- Patients’ accounts of memory lapses in interactions between neurologists and patients with functional memory disorders. Sociology of Health and Illness.
- A Pilot Study Investigating a Novel Non-Linear Measure of Eyes Open versus Eyes Closed EEG Synchronization in People with Alzheimer’s Disease and Healthy Controls. Brain Sciences, 8(7). View this article in WRRO
- Motion artifacts in standard clinical setting obscure disease-specific differences in quantitative susceptibility mapping. Physics in Medicine & Biology, 63(14). View this article in WRRO
- An Interactional Profile to Assist the Differential Diagnosis of Neurodegenerative and Functional Memory Disorders. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, 32(3), 197-206.
- Organic phosphorus: potential solutions for phosphorus security. Plant and Soil, 427(1-2), 1-3.
- Exaggerated startle in post-infectious opsoclonus myoclonus syndrome. Clinical Neurophysiology, 129(7), 1372-1373. View this article in WRRO
- Identifying patterns of communication in patients attending memory clinics: a systematic review of observations and signs with potential diagnostic utility. British Journal of General Practice, 68(667), E123-E138. View this article in WRRO
- Progress toward standardized diagnosis of vascular cognitive impairment: Guidelines from the Vascular Impairment of Cognition Classification Consensus Study. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 14(3), 280-292.
- Distinctive neuropsychological profiles differentiate patients with functional memory disorder from patients with amnestic-mild cognitive impairment. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 30(2), 90-96. View this article in WRRO
- PO029 An avatar aid in memory clinic. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 88(Suppl 1), A19.4-A20.
- PO017 Seeing the wood for the trees: a challenging case of altered consciousness. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 88(Suppl 1), A17.1-A17.
- [P4–034]: MITOCHONDRIAL ABNORMALITIES ARE FOUND IN FIBROBLASTS FROM SPORADIC ALZHEIMER's DISEASE PATIENTS: RECOVERY WITH URSODOXYCHOLIC ACID TREATMENT. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 13(7S_Part_26).
- [P3–260]: CENTRAL AUDITORY DYSFUNCTION AS A MARKER OF NEURODEGENERATION. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 13(7S_Part_21).
- Toward the automation of diagnostic conversation analysis in patients with memory complaints.. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 58(2), 373-387. View this article in WRRO
- Regiospecific synthesis of 6-halouridine derivatives: An effective method for coupling sterically hindered pyrimidine bases to ribose. Tetrahedron Letters, 58(13), 1348-1350.
- How the UK describes functional memory symptoms. Psychogeriatrics, 17(5), 336-337. View this article in WRRO
- Intensive versus Guideline Blood Pressure and Lipid Lowering in Patients with Previous Stroke: Main Results from the Pilot ‘Prevention of Decline in Cognition after Stroke Trial’ (PODCAST) Randomised Controlled Trial
. PLOS ONE, 12(1). View this article in WRRO
- The Vascular Impairment of Cognition Classification Consensus Study. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 13(6), 624-633.
- Patients who are not driving 6 weeks after transient ischaemic attack have higher levels of anxiety. Psychogeriatrics, 17(2), 146-146.
- P2‐307: Is Social Handicap the Link Between Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline? Development and Validation of a New Tool: The Social and Emotional Associations of Hearing Loss (SEAH). Alzheimer's & Dementia, 12(7S_Part_15).
- P2‐188: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS IN THE MEMORY CLINIC TO DISTINGUISH DEMENTIA FROM FUNCTIONAL MEMORY DISORDER. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 12(7S_Part_14).
- Papillary Thyroid Cancer in Subjects Who Were Children at the time of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident: Some Lessons for The Management of Fukushima’s Aftermaths. Jacobs Journal of Radiation Oncology, 3(2).
- Convenient synthesis of phosphonohydrazines from arylamines. Tetrahedron Letters, 57(19), 2097-2099.
- A wolf in sheep's clothing. Practical Neurology, 16(2), 153-156.
- Conversational assessment in memory clinic encounters: Interactional profiling for differentiating dementia from functional memory disorders. Aging and Mental Health, 20(5), 500-509.
- Journeying through Dementia, a community-based self-management intervention for people aged 65 years and over: a feasibility study to inform a future trial. Pilot and Feasibility Studies, 1. View this article in WRRO
- Baseline characteristics, analysis plan and report on feasibility for the Prevention Of Decline in Cognition After Stroke Trial (PODCAST). Trials, 16. View this article in WRRO
- Lysosomal and phagocytic activity is increased in astrocytes during disease progression in the SOD1 (G93A) mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 9.
- Functional (Psychogenic) Cognitive Disorders: A Perspective from the Neurology Clinic. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 48(s1), S5-S17.
- Four-Stage Audit Demonstrating Increased Uptake of HIV Testing in Acute Neurology Admissions Using Staged Practical Interventions.. PLoS One, 10(9). View this article in WRRO
- Towards diagnostic conversational profiles of patients presenting with dementia or functional memory disorders to memory clinics. Patient Education and Counseling, 98(9), 1071-1077.
- A diagnosis for £55: what is the cost of government initiatives in dementia case finding. Age and Ageing, 44(2), 344-345.
- Cerebral amyloid angiopathy: amyloid spells and cortical superficial siderosis. Practical Neurology, 15(2), 124-126.
- A Diagnosis for £55: what is the cost of government initiatives in dementia case finding?. Age and Ageing, 43(eLetters Supplement).
- Memory difficulties are not always a sign of incipient dementia: a review of the possible causes of loss of memory efficiency. British Medical Bulletin, 112(1), 71-81.
- Convenient synthesis of N1-substituted orotic acid derivatives. Tetrahedron Letters, 55(47), 6465-6466.
- Post stroke cognitive and mood screening: The Sheffield experience. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STROKE, 9, 42-42.
- P3‐243: COMPARING THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILES OF PATIENTS WITH MEMORY DISORDERS OF DIFFERENT AETIOLOGY. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 10(4S_Part_20).
- Prevention of Decline in Cognition after Stroke Trial (PODCAST): a study protocol for a factorial randomised controlled trial of intensive versus guideline lowering of blood pressure and lipids. Trials, 14. View this article in WRRO
- P2–364: The changing face of the memory clinic in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 9(4S_Part_12).
- O3–04–06: Faster forgetting: Distinguishing Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia with delayed recall measures. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 9(4S_Part_13).
- Wegener's granulomatosis presenting with multiple cranial nerve palsies and pachymeningitis. Practical Neurology, 13(3), 193-195.
- Trigeminal neuralgia: no laughing matter. Practical Neurology, 13(4), 263-267.
- Delayed toxic–hypoxic encephalopathy. Practical Neurology, 13(2), 114-119.
- Repeat cognitive screening (MoCA, MMSE & ACE-R, IQCODE) in a high risk post-stroke population: data from the 'Prevention Of Decline in Cognition After Stroke Trial' (POD-CAST). CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASES, 35, 519-519.
- Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation following pulsed cyclophosphamide in a severely disabled patient with malignant multiple sclerosis. Journal of Neurology, 260(3), 914-916.
- Cognitive screening in the acute stroke setting. Age and Ageing, 42(1), 113-116.
- Breathing arms. The Spine Journal, 12(7), 629-630.
- A comparison of in vitro properties of resting SOD1 transgenic microglia reveals evidence of reduced neuroprotective function. BMC Neuroscience, 12. View this article in WRRO
- Letter by Blackburn et al Regarding Article, “Is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Superior to the Mini-Mental State Examination to Detect Poststroke Cognitive Impairment? A Study With Neuropsychological Evaluation”. Stroke, 42(11).
- PO.11 How is stroke thrombolysis affecting neurology training?. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 82(9), e4-e4.
- PO.18 Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) presenting with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 82(9), e4-e4.
- Mutant SOD1 G93A microglia have an inflammatory phenotype and elevated production of MCP-1. NeuroReport, 20(16), 1450-1455.
- Antibody‐negative neuromyelitis optica with heavy B‐cell infiltration. APMIS, 117(10), 768-772.
- Astrocyte Function and Role in Motor Neuron Disease: A Future Therapeutic Target?. GLIA, 57(12), 1251-1264.
- Why bother with research when training to be a neurologist?. Practical Neurology, 7(5), 282-284.
- Occurrence of Thyroid Papillary Carcinoma in Young Patients. A Chernobyl Connection?. Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, 14(5).
- N- and C-terminal substance P fragments. NeuroReport, 10(10), 2209-2213.
- Political values and youth centrism: theoretical and empirical perspectives on political and value distinctiveness of Dutch youth centrists.. JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE, 22(1), 175-176.
- The origins of postmodern youth: informal youth movements in a comparative perspective.. JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE, 21(2), 223-223.
- A framework for targeting soil conservation policy. Journal of Rural Studies, 8(4), 399-410.
- EVALUATION OF A MODIFIED RECIPROCAL RECURRENT SELECTION PROCEDURE FOR MAIZE IMPROVEMENT. MAYDICA, 37(1), 61-67.
- SOIL CONSERVATION BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES AMONG ONTARIO FARMERS TOWARD ALTERNATIVE GOVERNMENT POLICY RESPONSES. JOURNAL OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION, 46(3), 215-219.
- EASTERN RURAL COMMUNITIES - MAINTAINING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL VIABILITY. AGROLOGIST, 10(4), 8-10.
- FULL-TIME VERSUS PART-TIME - GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS AND POLICY. AGROLOGIST, 9(3), 14-16.
- FARMERS BUYING BEHAVIOR - WHERE FARMERS GET ADVICE. AGROLOGIST, 7(4), 19-19.
- The “Soil Skills” Pedagogical Approach Conjugated With Soil Judging Contests. Spanish Journal of Soil Science, 13.
- Effectiveness of Endophytic and Rhizospheric Bacteria from Moringa spp. in Controlling Pythium aphanidermatum Damping-Off of Cabbage. Plants, 12(3), 668-668.
- Patients who are not driving 6 weeks after TIA have higher levels of anxiety. Psychogeriatrics..
- Blindness in a case of tetanus. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 77(3), 420-421.
Book chapters
- Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place to be a Union Member, GLOBAL ANTI-UNIONISM: NATURE, DYNAMICS, TRAJECTORIES AND OUTCOMES (pp. 184-206).
Conference proceedings
- Identifying People with Mild Cognitive Impairment at Risk of Developing Dementia using Speech Analysis. 2023 IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop (ASRU) (pp 1-6), 16 December 2023 - 20 December 2023.
- Comparing Spatial and Spectral Graph Filtering for Preprocessing Neurophysiological Signals. 2023 IEEE Signal Processing in Medicine and Biology Symposium (SPMB) (pp 1-6), 2 December 2023 - 2 December 2023.
- Understanding driving behaviour in individuals with mild cognitive impairments: a naturalistic study. HCI in Mobility, Transport, and Automotive Systems: 5th International Conference, MobiTAS 2023, Held as Part of the 25th HCI International Conference, HCII 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 23–28, 2023, Proceedings, Part II, Vol. LNCS 14049 (pp 263-274). Copenhagen, Denmark, 23 July 2023 - 23 July 2023. View this article in WRRO
- Investigating Visual Features for Cognitive Impairment Detection Using In-the-wild Data. 2023 IEEE 17th International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG) (pp 1-8), 5 January 2023 - 8 January 2023.
- Feasibility of automated longitudinal cognitive and mood assessment in the stroke pathway. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STROKE, Vol. 18(1) (pp 61-62)
- Kernel-based Nonlinear Manifold Learning for EEG Functional Connectivity Analysis with Application to Alzheimer's Disease. 2022 IEEE Signal Processing in Medicine and Biology Symposium (SPMB) (pp 1-5), 3 December 2022 - 3 December 2022.
- Evaluating the performance of state-of-the-art ASR systems on non-native English using corpora with extensive language background variation. Interspeech 2022: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp 3958-3962). Incheon, Korea, 18 September 2022 - 18 September 2022. View this article in WRRO
- Bispectrum-based Cross-frequency Functional Connectivity: Classification of Alzheimer's disease. 2022 44th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC) (pp 305-308), 11 July 2022 - 15 July 2022.
- The miRNA profile of neutrophil-derived microvesicles may impact blood-brain barrier integrity in Alzheimer's disease. NEUROPATHOLOGY AND APPLIED NEUROBIOLOGY, Vol. 48
- Eye blink rate based detection of cognitive impairment using in-the-wild data. 2021 9th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII). Nara, Japan (virtual conference), 28 September 2021 - 28 September 2021. View this article in WRRO
- Predicting Levels of Depression and Anxiety in People with Neurodegenerative Memory Complaints Presenting with Confounding Symptoms (pp 58-69)
- Multi-Task Estimation of Age and Cognitive Decline from Speech. ICASSP 2021 - 2021 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) (pp 7258-7262), 6 June 2021 - 11 June 2021.
- How can automated linguistic analysis help to discern functional cognitive disorder from healthy controls and mild cognitive impairment?. BJPsych Open, Vol. 7(S1) (pp S7-S7). Virtual, 21 June 2021 - 21 June 2021. View this article in WRRO
- A fully automated cognitive screening tool based on assessment of speech and language. Alzheimer's & Dementia, Vol. 16(S6). Chicago, IL, USA (online), 9 November 2020 - 9 November 2020. View this article in WRRO
- A comparison of acoustic and linguistics methodologies for Alzheimer’s dementia recognition. Interspeech 2020 (pp 2182-2186). Shanghai, China, 25 October 2020 - 25 October 2020. View this article in WRRO
- Improving detection of Alzheimer’s Disease using automatic speech recognition to identify high-quality segments for more robust feature extraction. Proceedings of Interspeech 2020 (pp 4961-4965). Shanghai, China, 25 October 2020 - 25 October 2020. View this article in WRRO
- Acoustic feature extraction with interpretable deep neural network for neurodegenerative related disorder classification. Proceedings of Interspeech 2020 (pp 4806-4810). Shanghai, China, 25 October 2020 - 25 October 2020. View this article in WRRO
- Do deficits in mitochondrial spare respiratory capacity contribute to neuropsychological changes seen in Alzheimer's disease?. Neurology, Vol. 94(15) View this article in WRRO
- 047 An unusual cause of psychosis. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 90(12) (pp A21.3-A21)
- Automatic hierarchical attention neural network for detecting AD. Proceedings of Interspeech 2019 (pp 4105-4109). Graz, Austria, 15 September 2019 - 15 September 2019. View this article in WRRO
- Computational Cognitive Assessment: Investigating the Use of an Intelligent Virtual Agent for the Detection of Early Signs of Dementia. ICASSP 2019 - 2019 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) (pp 2732-2736), 12 May 2019 - 17 May 2019.
- A novel quantitative EEG approach to distiguish Alzheimer’s disease from fronto tempura dementia and healthy controls. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, Vol. 381 (pp 319-319)
- An avatar to screen for cognitive impairment. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, Vol. 381 (pp 319-319)
- An avatar-based system for identifying individuals likely to develop dementia. Interspeech 2017 (pp 3147-3151). Stockholm, Sweden, 20 August 2017 - 20 August 2017. View this article in WRRO
- 28 Developing a teaching aid on dementia diagnosis using conversation analysis. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 88(8) (pp A24.2-A24)
- Conversational assessment in memory clinic encounters: creating a diagnostic scoring aid for differential diagnosis of dementia and functional memory disorders. Alzheimer s & Dementia, Vol. 13(7) (pp P1238-P1238). London, UK, 15 July 2017 - 15 July 2017. View this article in WRRO
- QEEG CAN DISTINGUISH PATIENTS WITH AD AND VOLUNTEERS. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 87(12) (pp e1.192-e1)
- CONVERSATION ANALYSIS IN THE MEMORY CLINIC. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 87(12) (pp e1.191-e1)
- Diagnosing people with dementia using automatic conversation analysis. Proceedings of Interspeech (pp 1220-1224). San Francisco, CA, 8 September 2016 - 8 September 2016. View this article in WRRO
- O4‐09‐02: Quantitative Eeg Can Identify Difference Between Patients with Alzheimer's Disease and Healthy Volunteers on an Individual Level. Alzheimer's & Dementia, Vol. 12(7S_Part_7)
- Communication. International Journal of Stroke, Vol. 9(4_suppl) (pp 38-39)
- DEVELOPING A NEUROLOGY MENTORING PROGRAMME FOR TRAINEES. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 85(10) (pp e4.162-e4)
- FUNCTIONAL MEMORY DISORDER; REVIEW FROM A MEMORY CLINIC. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 85(10) (pp e4.137-e4)
- PREVALENCE OF SLEEP DISORDERS IN A MEMORY CLINIC POPULATION. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 85(10) (pp e4.171-e4)
- A NIGHT TO REMEMBER: ALL WHITE THEN, ALL RIGHT NOW?. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 83(Suppl 2) (pp A16.2-A16)
- MULTIPLE CRANIAL NERVE PALSIES IN A YOUNG SINGER. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 83(Suppl 2) (pp A18.1-A18)
- Lack of Organisational Strategy when Copying a Complex Figure in Frontotemporal Dementia Patients. DEMENTIA AND GERIATRIC COGNITIVE DISORDERS, Vol. 33 (pp 192-192)
- Clarifying the Nature of Episodic Memory Deficits in Frontotemporal Dementia. DEMENTIA AND GERIATRIC COGNITIVE DISORDERS, Vol. 33 (pp 191-191)
- ABNT committee survey: Quality of training posts in the UK. JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 79(3) (pp 350-350)
- The role of microglia in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Investigating the effects of mutant SOD1 G93A on the microglial transcriptome. NEUROLOGY, Vol. 68(12) (pp A247-A247)
- The role of research in neurology training in the United Kingdom. NEUROLOGY, Vol. 68(12) (pp A108-A108)
- Microglial activation in familial ALS - Contribution to disease progression?. NEUROLOGY, Vol. 68(12) (pp A91-A91)
- The role of microglial cells in MND. NEURON GLIA BIOLOGY, Vol. 2 (pp S56-S56)
- A tonic pupil and unilateral deafness. JOURNAL OF THE NEUROLOGICAL SCIENCES, Vol. 238 (pp S264-S264)
- Blindness in a case of tetanus. JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 76(9) (pp 1324-1324)
- Dementia with Lewy bodies in Singapore. JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 76(9) (pp 1318-1318)
- Automatic cognitive assessment: Combining sparse datasets with disparate cognitive scores. Interspeech 2022 (pp 2463-2467)
- Using the Outputs of Different Automatic Speech Recognition Paradigms for Acoustic- and BERT-Based Alzheimer’s Dementia Detection Through Spontaneous Speech. Interspeech 2021
- Identifying Cognitive Impairment Using Sentence Representation Vectors. Interspeech 2021 (pp 2941-2945)
- Improving Cognitive Impairment Classification by Generative Neural Network-Based Feature Augmentation. Interspeech 2020 (pp 2527-2531)
- Detecting Signs of Dementia Using Word Vector Representations. Interspeech 2018 (pp 1893-1897)
Preprints
- CognoSpeak: an automatic, remote assessment of early cognitive decline in real-world conversational speech, arXiv.
- Early Dementia Detection Using Multiple Spontaneous Speech Prompts: The PROCESS Challenge, arXiv.
- Adaptive Gated Graph Convolutional Network for Explainable Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease using EEG Data, arXiv.
- Deficits in mitochondrial function and glucose metabolism seen in sporadic and familial Alzheimer’s disease derived Astrocytes are ameliorated by increasing hexokinase 1 expression, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- EEG-based Graph Neural Network Classification of Alzheimer’s Disease: An Empirical Evaluation of Functional Connectivity Methods, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Bispectrum-based Cross-frequency Functional Connectivity: Classification of Alzheimer's disease, arXiv.
- Cross-Frequency Multilayer Network Analysis with Bispectrum-based Functional Connectivity: A Study of Alzheimer’s Disease, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Characterising Alzheimer's Disease with EEG-based Energy Landscape Analysis, arXiv.
- Diagnostic & investigative approach of consultant neurologists in a real-world clinical setting, Wiley.
- Data augmentation using generative networks to identify dementia, arXiv.
- Detecting Alzheimer's Disease by estimating attention and elicitation path through the alignment of spoken picture descriptions with the picture prompt, arXiv.
- CognoSpeak: an automatic, remote assessment of early cognitive decline in real-world conversational speech. 2025 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Health and Medicine (CIHM), 1-7. View this article in WRRO
- Research group
-
I co-supervise the following students
1st Supervisor PhD
- Dr Ronan O’Malley is working on the digital doctor project to explore how linguistic analysis of semantic dysfunction can be combined with imaging and AD biomarkers to best manage MCI and predict conversion to AD.
- Dr Leslie Ing: Developing CognoMND and automated assessment of Cognition based on language for people with MND (Y2). Co-supervisor Prof Chris McDermott and Prof Heidi Christensen
- Labhpreet Kaur investigating automated assessment of collateral history form acre-partners to aid detection and diagnosis of cognitive impairment (Y1) Co-supervisor Prof Heidi Christensen
2nd Supervisor PhD
- Sam Hollands “Early onset cognitive impairment detection from speech and language signals” 1st supervise Heidi Christensen Funding Computer Science Doctoral Training Centre
- Meg Thomas- Roe of dysfuencies in cognitive impairment. 1st Supervisor Traci Walker. Computer Science Doctoral Training Centre
- Jin Ni- Individualised Adaptive P300-based Brain-computer Interface for TreatincCognitive Impairment Symptoms after Stroke. 1st supervisor Mahnaz Arvanah
- Mian Kou is the student's name.: Multimodal Intelligent Neural Interfaces for Early Detection and Treatment of Post-stroke Dementia. 1st supervisor Mahnaz Arvanah. Funding DiMEM.
Academic Clinical Lecturers
- Dr Simon Bell – has been funded by ARUK, NIHR Sheffield BRC and now Wellcome 4ward north Academy investigating models of sporadic AD using i-astrocytes created using INPC
- Dr Richard Bevan Jones. -investigating FTD and cognitive and behavioural disturbance in atypical Parkinsons’s disease.
Clinical Fellow
Dr Hina Khan, Investigating feasibility of cognitive assessment using CognoSpeak in South Asian communities
- Teaching interests
-
I helped set up the Clinical Neurology MSc course. I was the course lead for 12 months and have led two modules . I provide lectures and supervise research projects and CNELM students.
I teach on Neurodegeneration to MSc, UG medical students and PG students
I am a faculty member of the Neurology Academy, (The Edge, Sheffield) which provides masterclass teaching on Dementia for clinicians
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Chair of the Special Interest Group in Cognitive Disorders – Association of British Neurologists
- ARUK Clinical Policy Advisory Panel member
- I am co-lead for dementia, for the Yorkshire and Humber regional Clincial Research Network.
- Member of the South Yorkshire Interest Group in Dementia
- Member of UoS Senate Research and Innovation Committee
- I sit on the Dementia Translational Research Collaboration panel
- I am the lead for long term neurological conditions for Devices for Dignity NIHR MTC.
- Collaborators
- Professor Robert Perneckzy, Psychaity, UoS
- Professor Heidi Christensen- Professor of Spoken Language Technology, Computer Science, UoS
- Professor Markus Reuber- Neurology UoS
- Professor Oliver Bandmann, Professor of Movement disorders, UoS
- Dr Traci Walker- Lecturer Department of Human Communication Sciences, Uo
- Professor Chris McDermott, Professor of Translational Neurology
- Dr Mahnaz Arvaneh, Senior Lecturer, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering
- Dr Jon Dickson, Academic GP, UoS
- Dr Sam Creaven, Academic GP, University of Bristol
- Dr Ptolemaios Sarrigiannis, Consultant Neurophysiologist
- Professor Ananlena Venneri- Neuropsychology & Imaging, Brunel University
- Dr Matteo De Marco- Neuropsychology & Imaging, Brunel University
- Professor Vanessa Raymond, University of Oxford
- Professor Paresh Malhotra, Imperial College London