Investigating changes in the immune system to see if we can prevent or treat dementia after stroke.

1 in 3 people that survive a stroke develop problems with cognition such as impairment of their memory, thinking and problem-solving abilities. If severe, this is called dementia.

Stroke survivors tell us that cognitive problems and dementia are their top priority for research and treatment. Unfortunately, there are no treatments for post-stroke dementia.

The immune system, which is composed of specialised white blood cells and molecules, normally fights off infection and helps our bodies recover from injury. We believe that abnormal activation of the immune system after a stroke can contribute to post-stroke dementia.

By understanding more about how the immune system is changed after a stroke occurs, we hope to find much-needed new drugs to prevent or treat post-stroke dementia.

Why funding is needed

We are currently starting to unravel how the immune system changes after a stroke and have some exciting preliminary results.

A donation of £100,000 will allow us to extend our laboratory analyses with more blood samples from the study. This will help us gain further insights into exactly which elements of the immune system contribute to post-stroke dementia.

This is an essential step to enable us to identify new medications to prevent or treat this devastating condition, and improve the lives of stroke survivors and their families.

How we are investigating post-stroke dementia

Since 2021, we have enrolled 200 stroke survivors into a research study to investigate how changes to the immune system in the blood contributes to longer-term risk of dementia.

Participants are initially enrolled within four days of a stroke, and then have follow-up visits each year after their stroke, where they kindly donate more blood, undergo detailed cognitive tests, undertake a brain scan and answer some health questionnaires.

Our work is unique, pioneering and one of the most comprehensive studies of this kind worldwide.