A large, international research project called Bio-Hermes 2 aims to study Alzheimer's Disease by collecting data on digital and blood biomarkers (signs that can indicate if someone has the disease). The project wants to see how well these biomarkers match up with existing tests, such as PET scans, which show what's happening in the brain. Cambridge Cognition, a UK-based company, is contributing to this project by providing tools to measure digital biomarkers through touch screen and voice assessments on an iPad. These tests look at memory, language, and other cognitive skills that are affected early on in Alzheimer's. Cambridge Cognition has extensive experience working with clinical trials and has supported over 3,000 studies. They follow strict industry standards to ensure the project is done efficiently and accurately. The results of this project will help us to develop tools which can help to identify the earliest signs of Alzheimer's Disease. These tools can be used to help screen for early Alzheimer's Disease for both clinical trials and in healthcare settings, which is becoming more important now that there are treatments being developed which target specific early brain changes found in this devastating disease. Overall, the Bio-Hermes 2 project aims to advance our understanding of Alzheimer's by collecting new types of data and seeing how they match up with existing tests. The results will have a significant impact on Cambridge Cognition and potentially lead to better diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the population and is associated with enormous health and societal costs and personal suffering. The drugs that are available to treat schizophrenia don't work for many patients and can produce unpleasant side effects. They also don't help with some of the symptoms that trouble patients most, such as problems concentrating, and lack of energy. In this project we will investigate whether it is possible to use a non-invasive computer test to better predict who will benefit from a new type of medication, which has previously been trialled for use in schizophrenia. Because individuals vary widely in their symptoms and history, it is thought that schizophrenia may be a term that is used to describe people with several different underlying disorders. If we can use a computer test to measure one particular aspect of brain function, it should be easier to find patients who will benefit from a drug that targets that aspect of brain function. If in this feasibility study we develop more evidence to support this approach, we will then go on, beyond this grant, to test the hypothesis in patients in a clinical trial.

Chronic pain (pain lasting at least 3 months) affects around 1 in 3 people. While many painkillers are available, they do not work for everyone and often have undesirable side effects, including a risk of addiction. One reason it is difficult to develop better pain treatments is because there is no external way of measuring pain, other than by asking the person how much pain they feel. This is not always accurate, in part because things like mood and being distracted can affect how much pain you notice at any time. This project will develop a new method for externally measuring pain, based on signals in the rate and tone of a person’s speech. In it we will develop a computerised system that asks a patient to verbally respond to some questions and puzzles, and then analyses their speech to provide an automated score of how much pain they are in. This system will be useful during the development of new pain treatments, and ultimately may help doctors to more effectively manage pain by helping them assess more accurately whether or not a particular medicine is helping a particular patient.

To develop an app that will help depressive people to manage their symptoms by learning to read other people's facial expressions and emotions more positively.

Most of the 700,000 people in the UK with dementia have not received a formal diagnosis, so are denied access to benefitial treatments. The current NHS approach is slow (often more than 12 months) and often of low quality. This project will develop a novel digital healthcare system that will allow dementia diagnoses to be made quickly, cost effectively, and earlier in the diease course. It makes a novel combination of computer-based tests of memory and thinking and computerized analysis of MRI brain scans, which have been used in research for several years. It will provide support in diagnosis, making available the quality of information currently only available in highly specialist centres to doctors treating all patients, with the aim of reducing time to diagnosis to 3 months. We will build and test a prototype and demonstrate its value before developing a refined prototype that can be rolled-out nationally.